Victor Vâlcovici
Victor Vâlcovici (21 September [O.S. 9 September] 1885 – 21 June 1970) was a Romanian mechanician and mathematician.
Born into a modest family in Galați, he graduated first in his class in 1904 from Nicolae Bălcescu High School in Brăila. Entering the University of Bucharest on a scholarship, he attended its faculty of sciences and graduated in 1907 with a degree in mathematics. He then taught high school for two years before leaving for University of Göttingen on another scholarship to pursue a doctorate in mathematics. He wrote his thesis under the direction of Ludwig Prandtl and defended it in 1913; the thesis, titled "Ueber die diskontinuierliche Flussigkeitsbewegungen mit zwei freien Strahlen" (Discontinuous flow of liquids in two free dimensions),[1][2] amplified upon the work of Bernhard Riemann.[3]
He was subsequently named assistant professor of mechanics at Iași University, rising to full professor in 1918.[4] In 1921, he became rector of the Polytechnic School of Timișoara. There, he was also professor of rational mechanics and founded a laboratory dedicated to the field.[3] During his nine years as rector, he worked to place the recently founded university on a solid foundation.[4] From 1930 until retiring in 1962, he taught experimental mechanics at the University of Bucharest.[3] In the government of Nicolae Iorga, he served as Minister of Public Works from 1931 to 1932. During this time, he introduced a modern road network that featured paved highways.[3][4] In 1936 he gave an invited talk at the International Congresses of Mathematicians in Oslo.
Elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1936,[5] he was stripped of his membership by the new communist regime in 1948,[6]:123 but made a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 1965.[7] His numerous articles on theoretical and applied mechanics covered topics such as the principles of variational mechanics, the mechanics of ideal fluid flow, the theory of elasticity and astronomy.[3]
Streets have been named after Victor Vâlcovici in Brăila, Galați, and Timișoara.
Notes[]
- ^ Victor Vâlcovici at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Otlăcan, pp. 125–6
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d e Hager, p. 1361
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Otlăcan, p. 127
- ^ Otlăcan, p. 126, 127
- ^ Otiman, Păun Ion (December 2013). "1948–Anul imensei jertfe a Academiei Române" (PDF). Akademos (in Romanian). 4 (31): 115–124.
- ^ "Membrii Academiei Române din 1866 până în prezent" (in Romanian). Romanian Academy.
References[]
- Willi Hager, Hydraulicians in Europe (1800–2000), vol. 2. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4665-5498-6
- (in Romanian) Eufrosina Otlăcan, "Victor Vâlcovici (1885–1970) – savant și desăvârșit pedagog", NOEMA, vol. VI, 2007, pp. 124–29
- 1885 births
- 1970 deaths
- People from Galați
- University of Bucharest alumni
- Mechanical engineers
- Romanian mathematicians
- Romanian schoolteachers
- University of Bucharest faculty
- Alexandru Ioan Cuza University faculty
- Politehnica University of Timișoara faculty
- Rectors of Politehnica University of Timișoara
- Titular members of the Romanian Academy
- Romanian Ministers of Justice
- Romanian Ministers of Public Works
- Romanian Ministers of Communications
- Romanian Ministers of Transport
- Members of the Romanian Academy of Sciences
- Aerodynamicists