The everlasting connection between mathematics, mechanics, and physics was a spiritus movens of many fundamental mathematical ideas in the last third of the 20th century. Inspired by that connection, the Seminar on Mathematical Methods of Mechanics was initiated, in MISANU in Spring 1993, to facilitate a more active and organized participation in this stream of ideas.
There were two main initial tasks of the Seminar. First, to contribute to the organization of the postgraduate studies in these scientific fields in cooperation with the Chairs of Geometry and of Mechanics of the Faculty of Mathematics. The second task was to organize, conduct, and stimulate research, and also to provide a forum where the original research results could be reported.
Most frequently, the subjects of talks were about integrability and nonintegrability of dynamical systems, simplectic geometry, Lie groups and algebras, qualitative analysis of differential equations, algebraic curves...
The seminar was initiated by Vladimir Dragović, who has been the chairman from the very beginning. During 1994 and 2000, the duty of the chairman was carried out by Nikola Burić (1959-2016) and Darko Milinković, respectively.
For the first few years, the acivities of the Seminar included senior researchers Veljko Vujičić (1929-2020), Stevo Komljenović (1930-2020), and Rade Živaljević. Four PhD theses by Božidar Jovanović, Borislav Gajić, Milena Radnović, and Katarina Kukić were completed within the Seminar.
In 30 years of its operational history, the Seminar organized many special courses: Mathematical Methods of Mechanics by Vladimir Dragović in 1993 and 1994; Nonintegrable Systems by Nikola Burić in 1995; in 1997 four courses: Theory of Solitons; Algebraic Curves and Nonlinear Equations; Rigid-Body Dynamics and Geometry; Symmetries in Mechanics; in 1998 and 1999 Schemes and Cohomologies. After 2000, we mention courses by Darko Milinković: Mirror Symmetries; by Božidar Jovanović: Lie Groups and Algebras; by Jelena Grbić: Some aspects of classical homology theory (jointly organized with CGTA Seminar); by Jovo Jarić: Continuum Mechanics; by Milena Radnović, Borislav Gajić, Božidar Jovanović: Introduction to Algebraic Geometry; by Victor Buchstaber: Toric Topology (jointly organized with CGTA Seminar); by Borislav Gajić, Gordana Stojanović,Milena Radnović: Dynamical Systems, by Vladimir Janković: Introduction to optimal control – Pontryagin's maximum principle. The list of several other more recent courses includes Introduction to analytical mechanics and symplectic geometry and Algebraic curves and applications in classical mechanics by Borislav Gajić and Božidar Jovanović, and Introduction to Classical Mechanics and Theory of Stability by Vladimir Dragović, Borislav Gajić and Božidar Jovanović.
In 2012, the Seminar organized a mini-symposium on Algebraic Geometry, and in 2013 a mini-symposium devoted to its 20th anniversary. As a highlight, at the end, let us mention that the Seminar organized a mini - course by Academician Sergei Petrovich Novikov (1970 Fields medal) in 2011. The title of the course was: Integrable systems and a new discrete complex analysis.
Starting from 2008, the Seminar has been active in the organization of the series of the international conferences: GDIS - Geometry, Dynamics, Integrable Systems, jointly with Alexey Borisov (1965-2021) and Academician Valery V. Kozlov, Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, https://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/~gdis2022/.

GALLERY

Seminar meeting in 2005 (Božidar Jovanović, Milena Radnović, Vladimir Dragović, and Borislav Gajić).