page_title: Roger Joseph Boscovich
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Roger Joseph Boscovich / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Polymath Roger Joseph Boscovich bust at J.J.Strossmayer square in Zagreb, Croatia Hrvatski: Poprsje polihistora Ruđera Josipa Boškovića na Trgu J.J.Strossmayera u Zagrebu, Hrvatska
context_page_description: Roger Joseph Boscovich was a physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa. He studied and lived in Italy and France where he also published many of his works.
  Boscovich produced a precursor of atomic theory and made many contributions to astronomy, including the first geometric procedure for determining the equator of a rotating planet from three observations of a surface feature and for computing the orbit of a planet from three observations of its position. In 1753 he also discovered the absence of atmosphere on the Moon.
context_section_description: For his contributions to astronomy, a lunar crater was named after him (see Boscovich crater).
  The largest Croatian institute of natural sciences and technology, based in Zagreb, is called "Ruđer Bošković Institute". Bošković in 1782 was one of the founders of the Accademia nazionale delle scienze detta dei XL (National Association of the Sciences), with the name of "Società Italiana" (Italian Association): this learned society gathered forty members representing the most important Italian scientists of the period. The oldest astronomical society in the Balkans based in Serbia's capital Belgrade is called Astronomical Society Ruđer Bošković.
  In 1873, Nietzsche wrote a fragment called 'Time Atom Theory', which was a reworking of Boscovich's Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis redacta ad unicam legem virium in natura existentium. In general, Boscovich's ideas were a large influence on Nietzsche's ideas of force and the will to power. He was nicknamed the Croatian Leibniz by Werner Heisenberg. On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Boscovich death (1987) Yugoslav state Post based in Belgrade made a postage stamp and postcard on which is  written that Boskovich was "the greatest Croatian scientist of his time"
caption: Ruđer Bošković bust in front of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts building in Zagreb, Croatia
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