The scientific conference "Mihajlo Pupin Idvorski - 170 Years Since His Birth" was held on November 28 in the Ceremonial Hall of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Mihajlo Pupin, made a historic contribution to the development of telecommunications in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which enabled long-distance telephone conversations, and his overall research achievements encompass a much broader domain and have been published in dozens of patents and scientific papers. Marking the anniversary of his birth, this conference, through several lectures, recalls Pupin's research and other contributions as a scientist and professor at Columbia University, a member of many institutions including the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a patriot-fighter for our country after World War I. The welcoming speech was delivered by the President of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Academician Zoran Knežević.
Mihajlo Pupin was born on October 9, 1854, in the village of Idvor, municipality of Kovačica, in Banat. His father Konstantin (Kosta) and mother Olimpijada, farmers, had ten children, 5 sons and 5 daughters.
After completing elementary and, partially, secondary school in the fall of 1872, he went to Prague, Czech Republic, where he continued his education in the sixth grade and the first semester of the seventh grade of the Realka. He studied very irregularly due to his participation in the conflicts between Czech and German youth and his longing for his homeland. At the age of 20, he left for the USA.
Pupin lived very hard for the first five years after his arrival in the USA. He worked as a manual laborer, while also attending Cooper's evening school. In the fall of 1879, he passed the entrance exam at Columbia College in New York. As an exemplary student, he was exempted from paying tuition, and at the end of his first year he received two cash prizes (in Greek and mathematics). He mainly supported himself with the income from tutoring weaker students and manual labor.
After graduating in 1883, he received his first academic degree, Bachelor of Arts, and the day before that he received American citizenship. He immediately received a scholarship, as an excellent student, to study mathematics and physics in Cambridge, Great Britain (1883-1885), and then in Berlin (1885-1889), where he received his doctorate in the field of physical chemistry, with the topic: "Osmotic pressure and its relation to free energy".
He began his teaching career and scientific activity in 1889 as a teacher of physical mathematics in the electrical engineering department at Columbia University in New York, where he worked as a teacher and professor for forty years. He patented 34 inventions.
Pupin was also a successful writer. For his autobiographical work “From Pasture to Scientist” (original title: “From Immigrant to Inventor”), published in 1923, he received the Pulitzer Prize a year later in 1924.
He never forgot or renounced his old homeland and helped Idvor, Serbia and Yugoslavia in every possible way.
Pupin was married to an American woman, Sarah Catherine Jackson from New York. He had a daughter, Varvara, née Smith, with her.
He died on March 12, 1935, in New York City and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.

Source: Radio Slovo ljubve