Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin during the whole course of his life traversed a long way from the little shepherd in the village of Idvor to the professor at the Columbia University. The manner in which he realized his American dream has been described in the autobiography for which he got the Pulitzer Prize in 1924. With versatile education, he obtained his knowledge in Prague, New York, Cambridge and Berlin where he got his doctorate level with the famous German scientist Herman von Helmholtz.
Pupin was engaged at the great number of various fields: as an educator and professor, author of numerous expert works, as well as one of the chief activists in the organization of American engineers and scientists and the president of the association such as the American Association of Electrical Engineers, New York Academy of Scientists, the American Association for the Development of Science. For the contribution to the development of science, he was awarded the Edison Medal in 1919. Pupin educated numerous generations of experts, among his students were winners of the Nobel Prize, Robert Millikan, who measured the electricity of the electron and Edwin Armstrong, the creator of frequent modulation. One laboratory at Columbia University still bears the name of Mihajlo Pupin. He was also engaged in politics, at the side of the Serbian people, thanks to the personal friendship with the USA President Woodrow Wilson.
He was also very successful inventor and among his numerous inventions, the most important are “Pupin coils” that enabled the realization of the telephone conversations even at the inter-continental distances. Pupin had at least 136 patents from 29 countries, including 42 basic patents (35 USA, 6 British and 1 French).