Savic, Pavle

Born Jan. 10, 1909, in Salonika, Greece. Yugoslav physical chemist. Academician of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (1947).

Savič became a lecturer in physical chemistry at the University of Belgrade after his graduation from the university in 1932. From 1934 to 1939 he worked at the Institute of Radium in Paris, and from 1939 to 1941 he was a professor at the University of Belgrade. Savič became a member of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia in 1939 and fought in the National Liberation War in Yugoslavia of 1941–45. In 1943 he was appointed an adviser to the chairman of the Antifascist National Liberation Council of Yugoslavia. In 1944 and 1945 he was in Moscow as a member of the military mission of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army.

Savič was a research worker in the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1945 and 1946. In 1947 he organized an institute for research on the structure of matter, which in 1953 became the Boris Kidrič Institute of Nuclear Sciences and which was headed by Savič until 1960. From 1955 to 1960 he served as deputy chairman of the Yugoslav Commission on Nuclear Energy. Savič is currently a professor in the natural sciences and mathematics department of the University of Belgrade.

Savič collaborated with I. Joliot-Curie in the discovery of the decay of uranium nuclei upon irradiation with neutrons. He has also developed techniques for attaining extremely low temperatures and has formulated original theories on the causes of rotation of a system of particles and on the behavior of materials under high pressures.

Savič is a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958).