Famous Serbian Scientists

Inventor, engineer and futurist, Nikola Tesla, is best remembered for his contribution to the development of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. A prolific inventor, he had around 300 patents for his inventions. Even though he earned a considerable amount of money, he had poor money management skills and died a poor man.

Physicist Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin developed what is now known as pupinization, a mechanism which extended the range of long-distance telephonic communication with the use of loading coils. Born to illiterate parents, he was a Serbian immigrant in the U.S. and later wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, From Immigrant to Inventor.

Milutin Milanković was a Serbian astronomer, mathematician, geophysicist, climatologist, and civil engineer. He is best remembered for his explanation of Earth's climate changes, which partly explained the ice ages. Milutin Milankovitch's biography inspired a 2007 documentary film titled A Traveler Through Distant Worlds and Times.

Ognjeslav Kostović Stepanović was a Serbian inventor best remembered for his work that led to the creation of arbonite (plywood). In the early 1880s, Ognjeslav made an attempt to construct an airship with a large gasoline engine, about two decades before Ferdinand von Zeppelin. In 1879, Ognjeslav Kostović Stepanović demonstrated his flying models of an aircraft, helicopter, and ornithopter.