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iCHSTM 2013 Programme • Version 5.3.6, 27 July 2013 • ONLINE (includes late changes)
Index | Paper sessions timetable | Lunch and evening timetable | Main site |
Rogerius Joseph Boscovich / Rudjer Josip Bošković (1711, Dubrovnik, Croatia - 1787, Milano, Italy): One of the greatest European scientists of all time, natural philosopher, mathematician, physicist, technician, poet, Jesuit, diplomat. His research and achievements were spread over the fields of astronomy, optics, mechanics, geodesy, and construction techniques, of his time. Boscovich’s epoch-making work “A Theory of Natural Philosophy” (Vienna 1758 and Venice 1763, respectively) with the points-atoms as the ultimate building blocks of Nature, was based on the single universal law of forces that exists in nature. He used a method of thinking of Newton and Leibniz, synthesized and unified them for the first time into his new original method of thinking of Nature. Boscovich’s method may be expressed by the epistemological formula of ‘more geometrico sive mathematico – more rationali – more empirico – more theologico’, as the four basic concepts of science, philosophy and religion that have been unified together by his mind. Boscovich’s contribution reflects many controversial issues of the philosophy of nature and science in particular in the XVIII century. However, his Theory itself is fundamental for modern scientific picture and basic concepts of nature till today, due to structure and particles phenomenology included in it. It is crucial to discuss history and actual status of the natural sciences and related technologies along the roads of the Boscovich’s legacy.