Commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Academician Branislav Petronijević
The ceremonial scientific session honouring the 150th anniversary of the birth of Academician Branislav Petronijević will be held on Monday, 3 November, at the SASA Grand Hall, at 9.45 a.m. The event is co-organised by the Mathematical Institute of SASA and the SASA Department of Mathematics, Physics and Geo-Sciences.
Branislav Petronijević, born in Sovljak, Ub in 1875 and passed away in Belgrade in 1954, was a philosopher and mathematician, a full professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade. He was a member and served as a secretary of the Academy of Philosophical Sciences of the Serbian Royal Academy, followed by being a member of the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of the Serbian Academy of Sciences (in 1948).
He studied medicine at the University of Vienna while simultaneously delving into the works of great philosophers, through which he began to shape his own philosophical system. After two years of medical studies, he dropped out of medical school and devoted himself entirely to philosophy by continuing his studies at the University of Leipzig. He graduated in 1897 and submitted his doctoral dissertation titled Der Satz vom Grunde. Eine logische Untersuchung (The principle of sufficient reason. A logical investigation). He defended it at the same university on 26 January 1898.
Academician Petronijević was a scientist of the Renaissance type, whose various interests resulted in an exceptionally rich bibliography of more than four hundred works, most of which were published abroad in German, French, and English, in leading international journals and by renowned publishers. The scope of Petronijević’s opus is best exemplified in his Résumé des travaux philosophiques et scientifiques pour la période 1896–1936 (Belgrade: SKA, 1937). As this Résumé demonstrates, the majority of his works consist of mathematical and scientific studies, as well as the philosophy and foundations of mathematics and the exact sciences. Actually, Petronijević was the first Serbian philosopher and mathematician to have systematically studied the history, philosophy, and logical basics of mathematics—including geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and analysis—as well as the exact natural sciences.
This event aims to honour the 180th anniversary of Academician Branislav Petronijević’s birth and shed light on his work, particularly on the results and contributions in the field of natural sciences and mathematics, as well as in the fields of history, philosophy and mathematics foundations. Unlike his philosophical contributions, which have been extensively written about, his scientific work in the domains of natural sciences and mathematics has so far remained insufficiently explored.