Ivan Supek

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Ivan Supek(photo circa 2003)
Ivan Supek
(photo circa 2003)

Ivan Supek (April 8, 1915 - March 5, 2007) was a Croatian physicist, philosopher, writer, peace activist and humanist.

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[edit] Early years and education

Supek was born on April 8, 1915 in Zagreb, Croatia (still nominally under Austria-Hungary). After finishing high school in Zagreb in 1934, he continued his education at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Zagreb studying mathematics, physics and philosophy. He then quickly moved to Zürich and Leipzig where in 1940 he obtained his PhD in physics and philosophy under the supervision of Werner Heisenberg. In 1941 he was arrested by the Gestapo for being involved in antifascist activity. His professors, Heisenberg, Hund and von Weizsäcker intervened to release him from prison. He continued to work with Heisenberg until 1943, when he went back to Croatia and joined the Croatian antifascist movement.

[edit] Public activity

Already in 1944, fourteen months before Hiroshima, he warned on the danger of the newly developed atomic bomb, which could soon destroy the entire life on Earth. In 1946 he became a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Zagreb. His main contribution to physics was the discovery of the differential equation for electrical conductivity at low temperatures. In 1950 he advocated the construction of the Ruđer Bošković institute in Zagreb and became one of its founders. He was excluded from it in 1958 due to his disagreement with the Yugoslav Federal Commission for Nuclear Energy and his unwillingness to participate in a project for building the atomic bomb (an idea Tito himself did not like much, and which was subsequently abandoned). After that, he stopped active research in theoretical physics and continued researching philosophy and literature.

In 1960 he was accepted into the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (since 1991 the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts) of which he was president from 1991 to 1997, and in 1968 he became the rector of the University of Zagreb, serving two terms until 1972. In 1960 he founded the Institute for the Philosophy of Science and Peace, as a section of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts. The Institute was also a center of the nuclear disarmament movement, the Pugwash Conference for Yugoslavia, of which he was one of the founders and a member of its Permanent Committee. In 1970 he initiated the establishing of the Interuniversity Centre in Dubrovnik (IUC). He was also one of the founders of the international organization World without the Bomb. After numerous disputes and arguments with the government he was interrupted in his public activity in 1971. Among other incidents, he was put on a "black list" because of his involvement in the Croatian Spring movement.

In 1976 he signed the Dubrovnik-Philadelphia Statement, with Philip Noel-Baker, Ava Helen Pauling, Linus Pauling, Aurelio Peccei and Sophia Wadai. He participated at the Philadelphia Congress of World Unity in 1976. He formulated his famous ten humanistic principles, which were more or less repeated at every later peace summit and event. He also established the International League of Humanists.

[edit] Later years to present

Supek visited and lectured at numerous foreign universities. He retired in 1985, but ever since continued his humanist work. He founded a citizen association, Alijansa za treću Hrvatsku (Alliance for the third Croatia). He's a critic of globalisation and a proponent of the global justice movement. His life-long struggle for human rights and democracy make professor Supek one of the greatest humanists of the 20th century.

Supek died on March 5, 2007, in his home in Zagreb, after a long illness. [1]

[edit] Controversy over Heisenberg - Bohr 1941 meeting

In one of his last interviews in March 2006 [2] Supek spoke about the famous and controversial meeting between Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr in Copenhagen in September 1941. He was informed in confidence by Bohr's wife Margrethe about the meeting. Contrary to widespread stories, the main figure of the meeting was neither Heisenberg nor Bohr but Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker. "Heisenberg and von Weizsäcker came to Bohr in German army uniforms. Von Weizsäcker's idea, probably originating from his father who was Ribbentrop's deputy, was to persuade Bohr to mediate for peace between Great Britain and Germany."

Although Margrethe allegedly thought Supek will never bring these details into public, Supek felt it was "his duty to announce these facts so that future generations can know the truth about the Heisenberg - Bohr meeting".

[edit] Disputes with president Tuđman

Supek had many disputes with the first president of independent Croatia, Franjo Tuđman. In a 1997 "open letter" which he also read on the national television and published in all the major dailies, president Tuđman accused Supek, then President of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, of plotting Tuđman's assassination after Supek made public statements critical of presidential policies: he called for Tuđman to submit to public scrutiny his financial assets before and after the war. Supek had been a critic of Tuđman's political faux pas since Tuđman took office in 1990. Following the publication of the letter, Supek and his family suffered numerous death threats.

[edit] Literary works

Beside his scientific and humanist work, Supek wrote numerous novels and plays, with themes spanning from philosophy, science fiction to politics. His novel Proces stoljeća (translated to The Process of the Century) is about the process against the physicist Robert Oppenheimer. A list of his works can be found on the Academy homepage [3]. In 1966 he started a journal, Encyclopedia moderna.

In his numerous works, Supek developed a worldview in which the values of the freedom, responsibility, and democracy are integrated with his philosophical-scientific reflections.

[edit] Quotes

  • About science and humanism in 1995:
"The diversity of the world cannot be overcome in a political system; whoever tried to do that only produced tyranny and misery. The richness of plurality and diversity will only be increased in the future. All the European and world organizations are not enough, and cannot be effective if not inspired by the universal spirit and consciousness nourished by science and art."

[edit] External links