Rudjer Boscovich

Rudjer Joseph Boscovich (first name also sometimes spelled Roger in English; Italian Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich; Croatian and Serbian Ru?er Josip Bo?kovi?, ????? ????? ????????) (May 18, 1711 – February 13, 1787), was a Jesuit, physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat and poet from Dubrovnik (or Ragusa, the previously frequently referred to Italian version) who later lived in England, France and finally Italy.

Early years

Boscovich was born in Dubrovnik (in Dalmatia), an independent republic at the time, as the seventh child of Nikola Bo?kovi?, a trader from Herzegovina; and Paula Bettera, daughter of a local noble. The family was Catholic as Nikola converted to Catholicism to marry Paula. Rudjer Boscovich's ethnicity is a controversial issue; he has Italian heritage from his mother's side, while his Slavic heritage is disputed between the Croats who claim him due to the integration of Dubrovnik in the Croatian milieu, and the Serbs who claim him due to his father's reported descent from the noble Pokraj?i? family from the village of Orahov Do in eastern Herzegovina. Nikola, his father, went to Novi Pazar (modern Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro) not long after Ruggero's birth, where he spent the last years of his life.

Related Topics:
Dubrovnik - Dalmatia - Republic - Herzegovina - Catholic - Controversial issue - Italian - Slavic - Croats - Serbs - Pokraj?i? - Orahov Do - Novi Pazar - Serbia - Serbia and Montenegro

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When Rudjer/Ruggero was ten, his father died. In his fifteenth year, after passing through the usual elementary studies, he entered the Society of Jesus. On completing his novitiate, which was spent at Rome, he studied mathematics and physics at the Collegio Romano; and so brilliant was his progress in these sciences that in 1740 he was appointed professor of mathematics in the college.

Related Topics:
Society of Jesus - Rome - Mathematics - Physics - Collegio Romano - Science - 1740

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He was especially appropriate for this post due to his acquaintance with recent advances in science, and his skill in a classical severity of demonstration, acquired by a thorough study of the works of the Greek geometers. Several years before this appointment he had made a name for himself with an elegant solution of the problem of finding the Sun's equator and determining the period of its rotation by observation of the spots on its surface.

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