Đorđe Stanojević

Djordje M. Stanojević also spelled Đorđe Stanojević (7 April 1858–24 December 1921) was a Serbian physicist, astronomer and professor and rector at the Velika škola in Belgrade. He is credited with the introduction of the first electric lighting and the construction of the first Teslian polyphase hydroelectric power plants in Serbia.

Biography He was born on 7 April 1858 in Negotin, where he finished four grades of elementary school and a four-grade lower high school. He finished the upper grades of the grammar school in Belgrade, then in 1877, he enrolled in the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. In those years, as a high school student, he wrote his first professional works. In 1881, he graduated from the Velika škola in Belgrade and Professor Kosta Alković kept him as an assistant trainee at the Department of Physics. In the same year, he was in Paris for the first international exhibition on electricity. He remained in the position of assistant until 1883 when he passed the professor's exam in physics, mechanics and astronomy. In the same year, he was appointed professor of physics at the First Belgrade Gymnasium.

During several decades of work, in addition to the issue of electricity and its use-value, he was engaged in research in the field of physics, mechanics, astronomy, as well as new technical discoveries: colour photography, refrigeration and other fields. In the period from 1883 to 1887, as a cadet of the Ministry of War, he studied and worked in the most famous astronomical and meteorological observatories in Europe such as the University of Berlin, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology based in Hamburg, Paris Observatory, Astronomy Tower of the Sorbonne, Royal Greenwich Observatory in England, and the Pulkovo Observatory. Due to his performance and results, he received an invitation from the Paris Observatory to participate in a scientific research expedition to study the Sun in Petrovsk, where he participated in the study of the total solar eclipses, and two years later in another scientific research expedition to study the Sun and thermal radiation and infrared light in the Sahara. During that time, and somewhat later, he published several scientific papers in astrophysics in the editions of the French Academy of Sciences. These were the first modern scientific works in astronomy among Serbs in general.

He often stayed in European cities where he participated in gatherings and exhibitions in various fields of science and technology, gathered knowledge and experience which, immediately afterwards, he tried to transfer to his country. He is responsible for the introduction of the first electric lighting in Belgrade and the then Serbia, at the end of the 1880s, instead of the previously prevailing gas lighting. This made Belgrade one of the first capitals in Europe with electric lighting. and wrote the book entitled "Nikola Tesla and his discoveries", published in Belgrade in 1894. Vučje on Vučjanka (opened in 1903), Niš on Nišava, Veliko Gradište on Pek, Vlasotince on Vlasina, Ivanjica on Moravica, Raška on Ibar, Zaječar on Timok and so on. In early October 1893, Stanojević also constructed the first Belgrade hydrothermal power plant using Tesla's polyphase system in the district of Dorćol, His range of interests was wide, according to the books he wrote. Stanojević died on 24 December 1921 in Paris.

Legacy

There is Đorđe Stanojević Square in his native Negotin, and there is a Đorđe Stanojević Street (Ulica) in New Belgrade since 2005.

There is a memorial room of Stanojević in the building of Elektrodistribucija in Negotin since 1992, and a monument.

On the occasion of its day of founding, 6 October 1893, the Electric Power Industry of Serbia gives Djordje Stanojević Award for contributions to the development of the Serbian electric power industry.