page_title: Mihailo Petrović Alas
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Mihailo Petrović Alas / Biography
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Георгий Карагеоргиевич и Михайло Петрович English: Mihailo Petrović and Crown Prince Đorđe Karađorđević, with the caught fish, Belgrade 1906. (Foundation “Mihailo Petrović”)
context_page_description: Mihailo Petrović Alas, was an influential Serbian mathematician and inventor. He was also a distinguished professor at Belgrade University, an academic, fisherman, writer, publicist, musician, businessman, traveler and volunteer in the Balkan Wars, the First and Second World Wars. He was a student of Henri Poincaré, Paul Painlevé, Charles Hermite and Émile Picard. Petrović contributed significantly to the study of differential equations and phenomenology, founded Engineering mathematics in Serbia, and invented one of the first prototypes of a hydraulic analog computer.
context_section_description: Petrović was born on 6 May 1868, in Belgrade, as the first child of Nikodim, a professor of theology, and Milica (née Lazarević).
  He finished the First Belgrade Gymnasium in 1885, and afterwards enrolled at the natural science-mathematical section of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. At the time when he finished his studies in Serbia in 1889, several Serbian mathematicians who had acquired their doctorate degrees abroad, like Dr. Dimitrije Nešić (at Vienna and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), Dr. Dimitrije Danić (at Jena, 1885) and Bogdan Gavrilović (at Budapest, 1887) were beginning to make a name for themselves. Subsequently, in September 1889, he too went abroad, to Paris to receive further education, and to prepare for the entrance exam to the École Normale Supérieure. He got a degree in mathematical sciences from Sorbonne University in 1891. He worked on preparing his doctoral dissertation, and on 21 June 1894 he defended his PhD degree at the Sorbonne, and received a title Docteur des sciences mathematiques (doctor of mathematical sciences). His doctorate was in the field of differential equations.
  In 1894, Petrović became a professor of mathematics at the Belgrade's Grande école (which later became the University of Belgrade). In those days, he was one of the greatest experts for differential equations. He held lectures until his retirement in 1938. In 1897, he became an associate member of the Serbian Royal Academy and associate member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in Zagreb. He became a full member of the Serbian Royal Academy in 1899, when he was only 31.
  In 1882, he became a fisherman apprentice, and in 1895 he took the exam for master fisherman. Mihailo Petrović got the nickname "Alas" because of his passion for fishery. He was not only an aficionado, but expert as well. He participated in legislative talks regarding the fishery convention with Romania, and in talks with Austria-Hungary about the protection of the fishery on Sava, Drina and Danube rivers. Alas published expert papers and reports on the fish-fauna found in the Macedonian lakes, such as Skadar Lake and Ohrid Lake. He played violin, and in 1896, founded musical society named Suz. 
  Mihailo Petrović Alas also constructed a hidrointegrator, and won the gold medal at the World Exposition in Paris 1900. When in 1905 the Grande école was transformed into the University of Belgrade Petrović was among first eight regular professors, who elected other professors. He patented  total of 10 inventions, published 300 scientific works and a number of books and journals from his sea expeditions. These expeditions included trips to Azores, Newfoundland and Labrador, Suez Canal, Madagascar, Cape Verde, Canary Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Bermuda Triangle, Caribbean and others. Petrovć also visited both the North and South poles, researched the culture of Eskimos and took part in whale hunting expeditions.
  He received numerous awards and acknowledgments and was a member of several foreign science academies (Prague, Bucharest, Warsaw, Kraków) and scientific societies. In 1927, when Jovan Cvijić died, members of the Serbian academy proposed Mihailo Petrović as the new president of academy, but the authorities did not accept this proposal. Probable reason for this was the fact that Mihailo Petrović Alas was first a private tutor and mentor and later a close friend of the prince Đorđe P. Karađorđević, the king's brother, who was arrested in 1925, and held in house arrest.
  In 1931, members of the academy unanimously proposed Alas for the president of the academy, but authorities again dismissed this proposal. Mathematician and physicist Bogdan Gavrilović, a fellow professor, was nominated instead. In 1939, he became an honorary doctor at the University of Belgrade. In the same year, he received the order of Saint Sava, first class. He also founded the Belgrade School of Mathematics, which produced a number of mathematicians who continued Alas's work. All doctoral dissertations defended on the Belgrade University since 1912 until the Second World
caption: George, Crown Prince of Serbia and Alas posing beside a big catch
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