Young scientist grew up in Titograd, and continued his education in USA, following the road of astro-physics .
Talking to Pobjeda, he said that he wanted to be a scientist ever since he was little, and he was interested in different areas, but in the end desire to discover secrets of psychs was the strongest.
“My role models were Einstein and Newton, but also Tesla and Njegoš. At the time, I did not know in which direction my scientific interest will go, I was attracted by other fields, such as genetics. As I learned more about psychs, I got even more interested: I wanted to understand laws of nature better, laws that are the basis of our universe and that determine all that happens in it. Gravitational waves are an important part of fundamental psychs. To be a part of this discovery for me means to be a part of everlasting value. It is a feeling of complete satisfaction and it brings hope that the humanity will be a little bit better for the effort we put it”, Mandić said.
Studies of psychs and mathematics he did in Caltech in 1998, PhD in psychs he acquired in University of California Berkeley in 2004, and from 2004 to 2007 he had a Milliken postdoctoral scholarship on Caltech. From 2007, he is a professor on University of Minnesota.
It all started with mathematics
Before he went into the world, Mandić was a student in Podgorica, where he got a good foundation.
“Early education in Montenegro was an excellent foundation for moving forward. I would like to mention my mathematics teacher Bojana Vuković in elementary school and maths professor in high school Drago Kasalica. They put a lot of effort in me and help me get a good basis in mathematics, that I expanded on. Going to USA was not easy, but it was necessary for me to go on the road to science. I had luck to study in one of the leading institutions in the world, which enabled me to enter the world of science and start making contributions even as a student”, Mandić said.
New discoveries
When the news breaks of psychs limits being moved, it is a pretty abstract news for laymen. Mandić explains what gravitational waves will mean for science, or getting closer to the secret of the universe.
“This discovery opens a new field in the astro-physics and astronomy and now we have a completely new way to observe and study cosmos. We know there are objects in the space we should hear trough gravitational waves, such as couples of neutrino stars colliding. However, we assume there will be new signals we did not anticipate. It is very likely there will be many such discoveries in the next years, and they will all help us better understand laws of the psychs. I think this represents the beginning of scientific revolution”, Mandić said.
When asked are we now much closer to understanding universe, and in which direction we can move limits of human knowledge, Mandić says that LIGO detectors will improve their receptivity to gravitational waves in the next years.
“We expect more of these signals, and also signals from different objects. Also, there are plans to build new, even more sensitive detectors in the next decades. These detectors could pick up gravitational waves created during the Big Bang, giving us the possibility to study the universe in its first second. It is a unique possibility given to us by gravitational waves. Of course, technology for such detectors is still not completely developed, and that is one of the biggest challenges in this field”, he said.
I miss Montenegro’s mountains
Mandić says he and his family love Montenegro.
“We talk about it all year, and make plans for the following summer. Big part of our family lives in Montenegro, so the visits are important, especially to children. I must say I especially miss our mountains”, Mandić said.
Vuk Mandić says that science in Montenegro is not even closely developed as it could be, and there is objective possibilities, if the focus of society was on science development.
“Surely the state in Montenegro is not easy after all the wars and troubles in the region. However, investing into science is extremely important for society development, because science pulls other areas in society. I would very much like to see Montenegrin scientist connected with big projects in the world, such as LIGO. I am sure are scientist would be successful in these projects and give a big contribution if they had a chance”, Mandić concluded.
