Vol.3, No 11, 2001 pp.307-308
In Memoriam
MANE ŠAŠIĆ
(1927-1996)
In March, it will have been five years since our esteemed colleague and friend, Professor Dr. Sci. Mane Šašić, passed away. Mane Šašić was born in Velike Livade village (nowadays called Aleksandrovo) in 1927, in a family of emigrants from Lika. He completed his primary and secondary education in his birthplace, Gracac and Zrenjanin. He enrolled the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Belgrade in 1948, where he graduated in 1955. Thereafter he started working in "Žitomlin" company, where he became a technical manager in only six years. During his work in production he demonstrated an outstanding profes-sional interest. Apart from a number of projects in food process-ing industry he also published 14 papers in the journals "Nase mlinarstvo" and "Proiz-vodnja i prerada brašna". Wishing to become able to solve sophisticated engineering problems at high professional and scientific level, Mane Šašić joined the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering as an assistant at the newly founded Chair of Fluid Mechanics. At the same time he enrolled postgraduate studies at the Department of Mechanics, Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences in Belgrade, which he completed in 1963 by defending his master thesis in the theory of boundary layer. Mane Šašić defended his Ph.D. thesis entitled: Application of Non-analytical Complex Functions and Monogenic Quaternions in Fluid Mechanics, in 1966. He was promoted to the assistant professor in 1969; he became the associate professor in 1972 and full professor in 1977. His professional and scientific work was extremely varied and fertile, fully expressing his education at his postgraduate studies, as well as his previous work in industry. It is really difficult to find such an example here, and we believe much farther, that within the same promotion report, the contributions of the candidate both in the field of the application of non-analytical functions and monogenic quaternions in fluid mechanics as well as the typically professional areas such as the influence of porosity of pulverous materials on pressure loss in fluidization, the problems of hydraulic and pneumatic ash and slag transport in thermal power plants etc. are estimated equally valuable.
 Because of this Mane Šašić enjoyed the same esteem in the Mathematical Institute of SANU, as well as at his faculty and many other faculties of mechanical engineering in the country, in the Yugoslav Mechanics Association and the Association for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics - GAMM. He often delivered the results of his researches at their congresses and presented them in a number of production companies (in present and former Yugoslavia) that he cooperated with on solving particular practical problems. Owing to his work, Mane Šašić significantly promoted and enriched professional and scientific work of his home Chair. Together with professor Ivo Vušković he established a scientific-professional discipline of Pipe Transportation of Fluids and Solid Materials. He is the author of reference books, collection of assignments and a textbook for the discipline. A number of master and doctoral thesis have been completed under his guidance in these areas of science and profession. Mane Šašić was the Head of the Chair of Fluid Mechanics from 1979 to 1983; he was the vice-president of the Yugoslav Association of Mechanics from 1978 to 1981 as well as the head of the project in mechanics at the Mathematical Institute of SANU. As a professor, Mane Šašić was exceptionally conscientious and systematic. He diligently prepared his lectures without letting himself improvise on the basis of his experience. He was strict but fair with students who esteemed his, often very modest grade more than other grades. He knew how to be generous to the rare students whom he regarded best, and those were usually the students who gave him the pleasure of asking him questions and discussing with him different issues. He used to, instead of just signing into their student booklets at the final class of the term, write a straight 10 - this making him a man to be remembered by a small number of exceptional students. His behaviour was just the same at his job. Discipline, conscientiousness, inexhaustible energy and enthusiasm were among his virtues. He fully employed all these virtues when solving any problem he dealt with. He liked to discuss different issues with his colleagues, ask unusual questions and stimulate others to work. That is why we have been missing him very much all this time.

Academician Vladan Djordjević
(translated by Jelana Ćirić-Milenković)