Today, Rudjer Boskovic is the man well-known and recognized all across South-Eastern Europe, but not that much in the rest of the world.
He has the street with his name in every single large town from Macedonia to Slovenia.
Probably the most advanced research institute in Croatia was named after him.
And the street of Rudjer Boskovic is located in the part of Belgrade named Zvezdara (literally, "The Star Gazing".
But who was he?
Ruđer Bošković (Roger Joseph Boscovich) was born in 1711 in the City of Dubrovnik.
If you are a fan of Game of Thrones you know that some scenes were filmed there.
His life was very turbulent as he moved to Rome to get an education but he also became Jesuit. If you want to read his timeline in incredible details click right here, but here we will focus on his scientific work.
1737, Basics of non-Euclidean geometry
One of the first papers published by Boskovic, was the Trigonometriae sphaericae constructio where he gave some ideas that will be implemented in non-Euclidean geometry, more than 100 years later.
Let me try to give you some basics.
In "classical" geometry, if there are a line and a dot (that is not on that line). There can be one, and only one line, parallel with the first line that contains that dot. However, if you curve the space, you will be able to make an infinite number of such parallel lines.
Also, in classical geometry, there can be only one perpendicular line, that goes through the single point.
But, if you curve the space, there will be an infinite number of them
source
Quiz Question: Can you go straight, turn 90 degrees, do another 90 degrees and come back to the same point?
Of course, you can't in classical geometry and of course you can - on a sphere:
If this is puzzling to you today, just imagine how great those concepts were 300 years ago.
What were practical implications of his work? Weel, he was able to make the calculations of the pathways of comments.
Also, do you see the hint of space curvature caused by gravity?
But, that was not all, he also "invented" formulas for the calculations used to describe the Osculating circle together with Leibnitz.
And by deffinition:
In differential geometry of curves, the osculating circle of a sufficiently smooth plane curve at a given point p on the curve has been traditionally defined as the circle passing through p and a pair of additional points on the curve infinitesimally close to p. Its center lies on the inner normal line, and its curvature is the same as that of the given curve at that point. This circle, which is the one among all tangent circles at the given point that approaches the curve most tightly, was named circulus osculans (Latin for "kissing circle") by Leibniz.
Boskovitch's or Leibnitz's Demon?
You have maybe wandered, would it be possible to know the complete history and the complete future of the particles if the location and the momentum were known for each one of them. Leibnitz has also.
But Boskovic as well, before Leibnitz. He speaks in more physical terms and gives the conclusion that the determinism is possible if the force has the continuum.
What he said in 1750, it's true today as well.
1785, Relativity before the Einstein!?
In his work Opera pertinentia ad opticam et astronomiam, Boskovic postulated that the measures are not constant and that the measures becoming smaller in the direction of the movement.
Sounds familiar - it is proven 150 years latter!
Refraction in optics
Besides mathematics, Boskovic was incredible in physics as well.
Based on the property of light to change its path when entering the different medium, he was the first to measure the height of the troposphere.
Prediction of White Dwarfs and Extremely dense stars
But, there was more... He gave the ideas to atomic theory
By postulating the building elements of the matter to be a dots with the space between them. But, in contrast to mathematical dots, there are forces acting between them.
How similar is this to a nucleus of the atom?
And he disagreed with Newton, by rightly predict that some of that forces needed to be repulsive, and not only attractive
Check this modern graph:
vs Boskovic's graph:
And even more:
Several more astronomical calculations, proof that the landmasses on Earth are not equally distributed and that causes the variations in g-force...
He fixed the cupola on St.Peter's Cathedral (and cathedrals in Milano and Vienna as well), was the proponent of the Copernican theory, described sun spots and who knows what else he did but that was forgotten.
References:
- TEORIJA RUĐERA BOŠKOVIĆA KAO PUTOKAZ KA KVANTNOJ MEHANICI pdf
- Presentation about Rudjer link
- Very detailed biography link
- Another biography link
- 18 Pages, very well written pdf
- And some content in English link