Prof. Nikola Burić, our friend and colleague of many years, has passed away on 12 January 2016.



We will remember Nikola as a briliant scientist, one of the best Institute of Physics Belgrade can be proud of. Late last year he received Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts award for physical sciences, and continued to work with numerous collaborators, despite his illness.

Nikola Burić was born in 1959 in Belgrade. He obtained his bachelor and master's degree at Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Belgrade. He continued his PhD studies at University of London, where he graduated in 1990 with a thesis in applied mathematics. Afterwards, Nikola had a postdoc position for two years at School of Mathematics, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Between 1983 and 1993 he was employed by Institute of Physics Belgrade, including his research stay in UK from 1987 to 1993. Between 1993 and 2006 Nikola was working at Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, first as an assistant professor, later as an associate professor, and finally as a full professor of physics. Since 2006 Nikola returned to our institute as a full research professor, joining first our Photonics Center, and as of 2011 our Center for Complex Systems, Scientific Computing Laboratory (SCL).

Main area of his research was development and application of theory of dynamical systems in physics. Nikola achieved his most important results within the following research topics:

• Effective description of the fractal structure of Hamilton system dynamics, where he developed theory of modular smoothing;
• Modeling and analysis of dynamics of neural systems;
• Hamiltonian formulation of quantum mechanics, in particular of hybrid, quantum-classical systems.

Prof. Burić had numerous important, diverse, and inventive research results. He contributed to the establishment and development of several new areas of physics research in Serbia, and to initiating interdisciplinary applications of physics, collaborating with researchers of very heterogeneous backgrounds. He also contributed to PhD studies at Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade, through courses from quantum, classical, and mathematical physics.

Nikola's untimely departure therefore represents a big loss not only for his family and friends, but also for Serbian physics.

We will remember Nikola as a true friend we could count on to always speak his mind. We will remember him as a colleague whose opinion we always appreciated and often sought, sometimes informally, and sometimes quite formally, for instance when we selected him to represent us in the Executive Board of the Institute.

We will remember Nikola as a person with broad views, as someone we all learned from, who enriched our Institute and lives of all of us.

Our sympathies go out to Nikola's family, whose pain and loss we share. Our condolences also go out to his friends and collaborators.

Nikola is not with us anymore, but together we will keep his memory alive.