MIHAJLO PUPIN

(1854 – 1935)

The Serb
Who Connected
the World

Jovan Zlatković II - 6
• Mihajlo Pupin was born on 9 th October 1854 in Idvor,
little village in northern Serbia.
• His parents, Konstantin and Olimpijada, although
illiterate farmers with ten children, wanted the best
education for their son.
• He was educated in Idvor, Pančevo, Prague but his
schooling was complicated.
• At the age of twenty he went in USA.
• Led by his mother's motto that “Knowledge is the golden
ledder over which we climb to heaven“ he never gave ap.
• He bacame one the most successful and influental people
of his time by his own.
• He lived in the USA until his death on March the 12,
1935.
• Mihajlo Pupin arrived in America without money, without any
knowledge of English and without any practical skills.
• He didn't know anybody.
• He accepted all kind of jobs.
• Next five years was really difficult battle for survival.
• But he had his dreams, he believed in himself and he never gave
up.
• Finally, in 1879 he became a student at the Columbia University.
• After graduation he continued postgraduated studies at
Cambridge and he defended his doctoral thesis in Berlin.
• He became American citizen in 1883.
• Pupin returned to Columbia University and became lecturer of
mathematical physics in 1889.
• He worked there for next fourty years.
• Being a student of Pupin's was a remarkable privilege.
• 1888. a year before he came back in USA he married
with Sarah Katherine Jackson.
• They got a daughter named Barbara.
• Unfortunately, his wife died after only eight years of
marriage.
• It was a great tragedy for Pupin.
• During his scientific and experimental work he gave
important conclusions for the field of telegraphy,
telephony and radio tehnology, radiology and he had
great merits for the development of electrical
engineering.
• He patened 34 inventions.
• His most important and most famous was patent named
“ Pupin's coils“, which is why the process of using these
coils in long-distance telephone conversations without
noise is called pupinization.
• Pupin was a world known scientist, an inventor, talented
writer, a great humanist, patriot and skilful politician.
• He was remembered as a diligent and hardworking man.
• His achievements, titles and awards are numerous.
• He was among the founders of an organisation that later grew
into NASA.
• A Moon crater was named after him.
• Pupin was the first Serb who won the Pulitzer Prize.
• He won it for his autobiography “From Immigrant to Inventor“
which he dedicated to his mother Olimpijada.
• The award for the contribution to the national interests of the
USA is named after Mihajlo Pupin.
• An amphitheater at Columbia University bears his name.
• A world-renowned institute in the field of electronic and
telecommunications in Belgrade is named after him.
• During his lifetime Mihajlo Pupin was a honorary
professor at twenty universities around the world.
• He was a member of US National Academy of Sciences,
the French Academy of Sciences, the Serbian Academy
of Sciences and was the first President of New York
Academy of Sciences born outside of territory of the
USA.
• He was one of the founders and long-term president of
the Serbian People's Alliance in America.
• As close friend of President of the United States
Woodrow Wilson, Pupin was responsible for the
determination of the borders of Yugoslavia after the
World War I.
• Pupin had always been known as a great patriot so
Wilson concluded that Idvor had to be inside the borders
Pupin's country.
• So Banat remained in Serbia because of Pupin.
• Mihajlo Pupin and Nikola Tesla were contemporaries.
• They respected each other, but the last few years of
Pupin's life they were in quarel.
• However, when Pupin fell into bed , his last wish was to
see Tesla.
• The great Tesla, the regardless of the quarrels from the
past visited Pupin.
• During that meeting two great men were crying.
• Shortly afterwards, Pupin died.
• Not so long ago, a young man from Idvor
reached far and conquered the world.
• He had never forgotten or renounced his
homeland and he helped Idvor, Serbia and
Yugoslavia in various ways.
• He loved his Idvor so much that he
changed his name to Mihajlo Idvorski
Pupin.
• Mihajlo Pupin believed and never gave up
and achieved almost everything he
imagined.
• History has remembered this scientific and
human titan...We must too.