an ethnic Carinthian Slovene physicist, mathematician, and poet of the Austrian Empire. After having graduated top of his class in high school, he briefly considered joining the Benedictine Order, but his great interest in physics prevailed. He left for Vienna in 1853 to study mathematics and physics. His professor of physics in gymnasium was Karel Robida, who wrote the first Slovene physics textbook. Stefan then graduated in mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna in 1857. During his student years, he also wrote and published a number of poems in Slovene.
