Croatia 1943 – Ruder Boskovic
Ruder (or Rudjer) Josip Boskovic (1711–87) was a Croatian mathematician, astronomer and physicist. He was born in
Dubrovnik but spent most of his working life in Italy; as a result he is also
known by his Italianized name of Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich. He studied light
and optics and recommended the use of compound optics for overcoming chromatic
aberration in refractors. This stamp shows him using a small telescope and
clasping what may be intended to be a globe of the Earth, as geodesy was
another of his interests. In the 1760s he helped found the Jesuit observatory
at Brera, near Milan. Boskovic devised the first method of computing an object’s orbit from just three observations. He was also a pioneer of the theory of
atomic forces.
The 73rd stamp in each sheet of 100 contains a small addition: a letter “S” on Boskovic’s right hand, being the intial of the stamp’s engraver, Karl Seizinger (see detail at left).
