From Immigrant to Inventor

Michael Pupin's was a genuinely American story, the lifelong journey of a boy from rural Serbia, from a town so tiny it appeared on no maps, who became one of the greatest scientists of the early 20th century, changing the lives of people the world over with his technological innovations-he invented the therapeutic X-ray and made telephone communications practical and inexpensive-and helping to invent the modern world we know today. First published in 1922, Pupin's autobiography won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924, but Pupin's insightful and incisive words are their own greatest recommendation. American physicist and writer MICHAEL IDVORSKY PUPIN (1858-1935) was born in Serbia and emigrated to the United States as a teenager. As a professor and researcher at Columbia University, he invented sonar and made important discoveries in the fields of X-ray physics and telecommunications.