Abstract

Milan V. Kurepa, a distinguished Yugoslav atomic physicist, died on 16 October 2000 in Belgrade, following a heart operation.Kurepa was born on 11 May 1933 in the small town of Bačka Palanka in Vojvodina, Serbia. In 1956, as an undergraduate, he began working at what is now the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences near Belgrade. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physical chemistry in 1957 at the University of Belgrade and started graduate studies in physics there in 1961. However, he spent the 1961–62 academic year in the electrical engineering department at the University of Liverpool in the UK, where J. D. Craggs supervised him. Kurepa earned his PhD in physics in 1963 at the University of Belgrade, as a student of Aleksandar Milojevič. His thesis topic was slow electron scattering off atoms and molecules.Kurepa then joined the University of Belgrade physics department as an assistant professor. He became a professor in 1981 and continued in that position until his retirement in 1998. Kurepa also had visiting appointments in the UK at the University of York, the Royal Holloway College of the University of London, and the University of Southampton and in Germany at the University of Kaiserslautern. Kurepa’s pedagogical work at the undergraduate and graduate levels was highly valued. He was a coauthor of 12 university and 4 high-school textbooks. In 1964, Kurepa joined the newly founded Institute of Physics at the University of Belgrade as a research scientist. There, he started the Atomic Physics Laboratory. His abilities and work habits were the paradigm of professionalism and enthusiasm that he conveyed to his colleagues and his students. Due primarily to Kurepa’s leadership, the Atomic Physics Laboratory gained an international reputation in the field of electron collisions with atoms or molecules. Many researchers from this laboratory have continued their careers in other institutes and universities in Yugoslavia, as well as around the world. At present, about a dozen of Kurepa’s students are scientists and professors at leading universities in Australia, Belgium, the UK, France, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, and the US.Kurepa showed an extraordinary ability to promote scientific work in Yugoslavia, especially by establishing connections with international physics organizations and institutions. He was an outstanding organizer; for example, he coordinated both domestic and international conferences, the most important being the Eighth International Conference on the Physics of Electronic and Atomic Collisions, and several international symposia on the physics of ionized gases. He served as president of the Yugoslav National Physics Committee (1986–91) and was the Yugoslav representative for the atomic physics committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1981–91). He also was a member of the European Physical Society (1972–92) and served on the executive committee of the Balkan Physical Union (1990–2000).In 1994, Kurepa was elected the corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU). He often remarked that he felt SANU should not only represent and symbolize the unity and importance of science, but address the essential and immediate social needs—play a more active role within the scientific and intellectual sphere, in general. During the isolation of Yugoslav scientists from the rest of the world due to United Nations sanctions, Kurepa organized a very successful meeting of SANU in 1997 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the electron.Kurepa fought for democracy in Yugoslavia. A vigorous adversary of Slobodan Milošević’s regime, Kurepa founded in 1997 the Association of University Professors and Scientists, with the principal aim of fighting for the recovery of basic university freedoms in Serbia. He was AUPR’s first president. The association has been especially active since 1998, when the University Act was introduced to abolish the autonomy of Serbian universities. AUPR has organized protest meetings at Serbian universities, published statements regarding university autonomy and freedom of opinion, appealed to international academic associations for intervention with the Serbian government, and engaged in similar activities.With the same spirit, Kurepa actively participated in the nongovernmental Alternative Academic Educational Network (AAEN) and in the Southeast European Academic Network (SEAN). He was one of the founders of AAEN, which provides jobs for university staff who were either expelled from a university by the regime or retired on their own for the sake of self-respect (as did Kurepa). AAEN also promotes new educational ideas and methods, mainly following the college system, with an emphasis on students’ active participation during lectures. It was primarily due to Kurepa that the natural sciences got its place in the AAEN program (which had been strongly oriented toward the humanistic sciences), with a course on the history and epistemology of science. SEAN helps organize and finance universities in the region, promoting modern educational standards. Kurepa took an active role in expounding the problems and needs of Serbian universities.During the 2000 electoral campaign, Kurepa traveled around Serbia with the students’ movement Otpor (The Resistance) that was instrumental in changing the ruling party in Serbia. Otpor awarded him a certificate, acknowledging him as “the most resistive professor.” Kurepa valued this honor very much.Kurepa will be remembered as a man of extraordinary scientific efficacy and exceptional moral strength. Those who had the privilege to be his colleagues and friends will keep a most pleasant and rewarding memory of him. Milan V. Kurepa PPT|High resolution© 2001 American Institute of Physics.

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