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Biography: Roger BoscovichBoskovic was born in Dubrovnik in 1711, left his native city in his early youth to be educated in Rome, where his elder brother Baro enrolled him in the Jusuit College. For many years he lectured on mathematics and philosophy, and after 1747 lived in or travelled through many cities in Europe, from Paris to London, Venice, Warsaw, Istanbul and Milan. He is the author of many significant works, such as De viribus vivis, De continuitatis lege, De lege virium in natura existentium and his capital work, Philosophiae naturalis theoria, printed in Vienna in 1758. He also wrote scientific works in verse form: his versified De solis ac lunae defectibus is one of the most notable scientific treatises ever written in verse.
An Austrian spy who visited Dubrovnik in its decline around the 1770s was perhaps justified to ask: »Is it possible that this is Boskovic's homeland?«. Be that as it may, this was indeed the only homeland of this man of genius, the destination to which he addressed his loving letters, and his portraits drawn in pencil, or the binoculars he sent through his brother to curious acquaintances. Unfortunately it was a homeland which could not offer him even the most elementary facilities needed for his research. And this is why Boskovic is just another Croatian Ahasverus.
Although the theories of Rugjer Boskovic were respected in his time, only today are they fully appreciated. Boskovic anticipated ideas which were ahead of his time: in the twentieth century, however, they were integrated into Thomson's theory of the atom or the results of Niels Bohr. This great thinker, so often quoted by the well known Carl Popper for example, is today seen as one of the leading spirits of humankind.
In the presence of d'Alembert, Rugjer Boskovic disclaimed eneretically the false allegation that he was Italian.
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