Andrej Dujella, of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, is distinguished Croatian mathematician, expert in Number Theory. His monograph Teorija brojeva , written in Croatian, saw its translation into English in 2021: Number Theory . It is primarily intended for students of mathematics and related faculties who attend courses in number theory and its applications. However, it can also be useful to advanced high school students who are preparing for mathematics competitions in which at all levels, from the school level to international competitions, number theory has a significant role, and for doctoral students and scientists in the fields of number theory, algebra and cryptography.
Category: Science
Andro Mikelic 1956-2020 distinguished Croatian mathematician in France
Andro Mikelić’s very great scientific talent earned him deserved awards: he was a corresponding member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2014, he received the InterPore Procter and Gamble Award for Porous Media Research in 2012, after being awarded the W. Romberg Guest Professorship of the University of Heidelberg in 2011. He had collaborations with researchers from all over the world: from France, from the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and of course, from his native Croatia.
PingPongParkinson Virtual Reality Championship April 11, 2021
PingPongParkinson has announced the launch of PingPongParkinson Virtual Reality World Championships slated for April 11, 2021. This year’s tournament is the first-ever virtual reality (VR) parkinson’s world table tennis championships, coming after Ping Pong Parkinson, alongside the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and International Table Tennis Federation Foundation (ITTF Foundation) partnered in 2019 to host an inaugural world table tennis championship for players with Parkinson’s Disease.
Croatia shining in 2020
I am sure that many of you, like me, have lived about ten lifetimes this year, the most chaotic, stressful, unpredictable and scary perhaps ever. But we are still here, hanging on, and hoping for better things. But 2020 was not such a disaster for everyone. In fact, if you take a step back from all the doom and gloom and try and look on the brighter side of life, there is an awful lot of positivity to celebrate, especially if you are Croatian. In an effort to balance the understandable depressive posts on the web, here is an ode of recognition to 25 things which made Croatia shine in the pandemic year of 2020. On the photo, an amazing cat-like Croatian island.
MIRET ecological sneakers made with 97% natural materials
Hrvoje and Domagoj Boljar, from the town of Duga Resa near the city of Karlovac, Croatia: “We are industry insiders who have inherited a factory from our father in our 20s. We have manufactured sneakers for some of the most famous high-end brands in the world. We realised that the footwear industry is horrible to the environment. So we set out to use our manufacturing experience to really redesign shoes from bottom up and make them compatible with nature. Step into durable and comfy unisex sneakers and leave no toxic legacy to the next generations that will walk the Earth.”
Marina Jurica singing meteorologist lead commentator for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2019
Marina Jurica graduated from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) with two degrees: one in Meteorology and the other in Opera Performance. She is persuing both of her passions. She worked in Orlando, Florida, before becoming chief meteorologist at CBS47 in 2016. She was the first female chief meteorologist in the USA, and is still one of the few female chiefs. She appeared as professional opera singer in the Canadian tour of “Les Miserables” and debuted her own show “Seasons of Love” on Broadway in 2018. Her father is from the island of Lastovo, and mother from the city of Opatija, both in Croatia: “I am a first generation American, my ENTIRE family is Croatian. Growing up in a Croatian home and French immersion school, I became tri-lingual quickly.”. On the photo, Marina Jurica is with her son John.
TESLA (T) unit for magnetic flux density introduced in 1960 in Paris
TESLA is a unit for magnetic induction, that is, of the magnetic flux density, introduced in 1960 (October 18th) in Paris by the General Conference on Weights and Measures. It is a part of basic SI derived units. With this article, we mark 60 years since introducing this important unit. In his autobiography published in 1919, Tesla wrote: “I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics, who was an ingenious man and often demonstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention.” The name of Tesla’s professor, when he was at the age of 14-17, was Martin Sekulić.
Zeljko Zuanovic Croatian priest and his wonderful world of sea shells
Željko Zuanović is a Croatian catholic priest, with an interesting hobby: he collects see shells throughout the world. His collection of about 2500 shells is since 2020 exhibited in the village of Marijanci, a few kilometers of Valpovo the NE of Croatia. We recommend you to pay a visit to his collection of shells. Surprisingly, rev. Zuanović was born in continental part of Croatia, and his other hobbies include diving, singing, cooking and writing poetry. He has published a wonderful book entitled The World of Shells .
Ragusa (Dubrovnik) in Croatia and Ragusa on the island of Sicily in Italy
The article deals with erroneous interpretation of the Ragusa veduta dating from 1695, kept at the National and University Library in Zagreb, Croatia (and there are numerous copies kept in other European libraries, the first edition originating from 1638). It was published Matthaeus Merian Sr., but it does not represent the city of Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in Croatia, but Ragusa on the island of Sicily in Italy. Most of the authors do not distinguish between Matthaeus Merian Sr. and his son Matthaeus Merian Jr., which has caused numerous mistakes and contradictions. It is interesting that Matthaeus Merian Jr. (on the photo) prepared a well known veduta of the city of Dubrovnik (Ragusa in Croatia) in flames, after the 1667 earthquake, and not his father (who has died 17 years earlier, in 1650).
Franka Miriam Brueckler author of three math books published by Springer
Franka Miriam Brueckler, employed at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Zagreb, has published already three mathematical books with Springer Verlag, all of them in German langague. The first two deal with the History of Mathematics, while the third one, which appeared in 2019, is dedicated to mathematical foundations of chrystallography (for both mathematicians and natural scientists): Mathematische Grundlagen der Kristallographie fuer Matthematiker und Naturwissenschaftler . The last book has 207 pp, accompanied with more than 100 drawings and several tables. Congratulations to the author for her fine work!
Danica Kragic Jensfelt leads a robotic project funded by European Research Council
Distinguished Croatian scientist Prof. Danica Kragić Jensfelt, Ph.D., professor of computer science at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm and a member of the International Scientific Council of the University of Rijeka, has won a kind of “scientific Oscar” for 2019. Her project Bimanual Manipulation of Rigid and Deformable Objects has been selected as one of 82 projects in the field of physical sciences and engineering to be funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
Celebrating 22nd February the Day of Croatian Glagolitic Script and Glagolitism
On 22nd Febrary, 1483, the first Croatian printed book has appeared in the Glagolitic Script. It shows that Croatian glagolitic priests were able to adopt very early Gutenberg’s technology of movable type. Only 12 copies of the books have been preserved, 5 of them kept in Croatia, and 7 scattered throughout the world: in the Russian National Library (former Russian Imperial Library) in St Petersburg, in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (former Austrian Royal Library), in the Vatican Apostolic Library (two copies), and in the Library of Congress in Washington. On the photo a monument to Gutenberg in Zagreb from cc. 1890, the first one in Europe appearing outside of German speaking area.
Croatian Post successfully made its first drone delivery in Feb 2020
The drone flew autonomously, from the Zadar port of Gaženica to Preko on the island of Ugljan at a speed of 35 km/h, for about 12 minutes. This flight is a part of a pilot project with the Croatian company AIR-RMLD which develops commercial and industrial services using drones. Drones have already proved their usefulness in crisis situations, for example, when medicine or antidotes needed to be delivered in hard to reach areas. Today, Croatian Post is testing smart solutions faster and more often than ever before – from augmented reality goggles, pallet-carrier robots to electric vehicles and drones. On the photo, the city of Dubrovnik seen by a drone.
Nikola Tesla's schooling in Croatia lecture at the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Paris 2020
AMCA-Paris (association of former students of Croatian universities, living in Paris), organized a lecture delivered at the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Paris, dealing with the schooling of Nikola Tesla in Croatia during his formative years (from his 14th to 17 year). His most important professor from that period is Martin Sekulić, for who Tesla writes to be an ingenious man who enthused him for electricity. On the amusing photo from 1941 we can see Nikola Tesla (on the right, two years before his death) with Croatian-American boxer Fritzie Zivic, then the welter weight champion of the world. This is the only known photo on which Nikola Tesla smiles.
Nikola Tesla's schooling in Croatia and his professor of physics Martin Sekulic
Here is Tesla’s description of Martin Sekulić, his professor of Physics at the Higher Real School in Rakovac (near the city of Karlovac in Croatia, when Tesla was at the age of 14-17): I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics, who was an ingenious man and often demonstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention… It is impossible for me to convey an adequate idea of the intensity of feeling I experienced in witnessing his exhibitions of these mysterious phenomena. Every impression produced a thousand echoes in my mind… Source: Electrical Experimenter , New York, April 1919. Nikola Tesla’s live portrait by Croatian painter Ivan Benković, is on the left, shown for the first time to broad public.
Golden formula of Croatian language "ČA – KAJ – ŠTO"
The golden formula of the Croatian language “ČA – KAJ – ŠTO” is a Croatian intangible cultural asset listed on the List of Intangible Cultural Property of the Republic of Croatia in November 2019. The author, Dr Drago Štambuk, is proponent and author of the concept of preservation of knowledge and practices provided by the close connection of Croatian language. We also announce the Scientific Conference on Computer Linguistics and the Golden Formula of the Croatian Language, to be held on May 22 to 23, 2020 in the city of Osijek. On the photo is the Petris Glagolitic Miscellany from 1468, written in all three Croatian dialects: čakavian, kajkavian and štokavian.
Nikola Tesla's autobiography "My Inventions" published by Electrical Experimenter in 1919
With this article, we mark the centennial of Nikola Tesla’s autobiography “My Inventions” in the USA. Nikola Tesla wrote that at the age of 14, ” My studies were continued at the Higher Real Gymnasium in Carlstadt, Croatia ,… I had become intensely interested in electricity under the stimulating influence of my Professor of Physics , who was an ingenious man and often demonstrated the principles by apparatus of his own invention . ” The name of his professor was Martin Sekulić, who was not only a high school teacher, but also an active scientist. During Tesla’s schooling in Carlstadt (now Karlovac), Sekulić became an associate memeber of JAZU in Zagreb (now Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts), in the department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.
ITTF Parkinson's World Championships sucessful debut in 2019
Twelve countries participated at the First ITTF Ping Pong Parkinson Competition, organized in New York, October 11-13 2019: Brazil, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, USA. A few countries announced that they will start to organize their national competitions. Congratulations to the organizeras of the competition, and in particular to the idea and intiative of Nenad Bach (on the photo). EURoeThe idea behind this Championship is to help as many people around the world as possible to continue living with Parkinson’s Disease and to be happy, productive members of the society. We are also engaging the scientific community to look deeper into the health benefits of table tennis.
Daniel Gajski electronic design automation scientist earns Test-of-Time Recognition 2019
Daniel Gajski is an influential electronic design automation scientist with more than 40 years of intensive engagement in industry and academia. He is considered among the founding fathers of new electronic design methods that reach toward higher levels of abstractions and their relationship to system architectures, and is a leader in establishing the fields of silicon compilation, high-level synthesis and system-level design. Gajski is originally from Croatia where he earned his undergraduate and master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Zagreb. He then attended the University of Pennsylvania for his doctorate in computer and information sciences.
Vladimir Novak: Croatians in America, fascinating photomonograph published in 2018
 Vladimir Novak (1928-2016)