Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich (Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, Roger Joseph Boscovich, Rudjer Josip Boskovic), 1711-1787. Croatian scientist and philosopher of the
Enlightenment period. He is best known for his effort to explain reality through the attraction and repulsion of non-dimensional particles. This was an important early step in the
philosophy of physics, and had a profound influence on the later
electromagnetic theory of Maxwell.