Martin Sekulić (1833–1905) was a mathematics and physics teacher from Karlovac, one of the few high-school professors who were members of the Croatian community of physicists at the time.
Biography
Martin Sekulić was born in
Lovinac
Lovinac is a municipality in Lika-Senj County, Croatia.
Geography
The village of Lovinac is located 35 kilometers from Gospić to the southeast of the greatest Croatian karst field, Licko polje. At one time, the shortest trade routes from Lik ...
. He taught at the Higher Real School in Rakovac (today Karlovac).
He was a corresponding member ( hr, dopisni član) of the
Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia.
HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...
. He was also a member of the Croatian pedagogic and literary society (''Hrvatski pedagogijsko-književni zbor'').
He published several articles in German-language journals, such as in the ''
Annalen der Physik
''Annalen der Physik'' (English: ''Annals of Physics'') is one of the oldest scientific journals on physics; it has been published since 1799. The journal publishes original, peer-reviewed papers on experimental, theoretical, applied, and mathe ...
'' in 1872 and 1875.
He published several works in the ''Rad'' journal of the
Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Croatica, hr, Hrvatska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, abbrev. HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia.
HAZU was founded under patronage of the Croatian bishop Jo ...
, such as ''Fluorescencija i calcescencija'' (1871) and ''Iztraživanje sunčane duge'' (1873). In the 1871 treatise, he explains the effect of the luminescence in some elements and in the 1873 one he talks about the visible spectrum of the sun's light. In the 1871 treatise, Sekulić also predicted the existence of electromagnetic oscillations at different frequencies.
During the period in which Martin Sekulić was the custodian of the science cabinet of his high school, he would inform his students of the very latest discoveries in the world of physics, and by the school year 1880/81 they had amassed a total of 277 machines for demonstration purposes, including a
spectroscope
An optical spectrometer (spectrophotometer, spectrograph or spectroscope) is an instrument used to measure properties of light over a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, typically used in spectroscopic analysis to identify mate ...
modified by Sekulić himself.
Sekulić died in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...
My Inventions
''My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla'' is a book compiled and edited by Ben Johnston detailing the work of Nikola Tesla. The content was largely drawn from a series of articles that Nikola Tesla had written for ''Electrical Experimen ...
'' that when he attended the ''Kraljevska Velika Realka'' in Rakovac (Karlovac) between 1870 and 1873, demonstrations of electricity by his "professor of physics" sparked his interest in this "mysterious phenomena" and made him want "to know more of this wonderful force". The details of who was teaching physics at that time and the nature of the demonstrations described have led some to conclude this professor was Martin Sekulić.Marc Seifer, Wizard: The Life And Times Of Nikola Tesla, Citadel - 1998, CHILDHOOD 1856-74