Science and technology in Romania - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

On May 14, 1981 Romania became the 11th country

Timeline of astronauts by nationality

Since the first human spaceflight by the Soviet Union, citizens of 38 countries have flown in space. For each nationality, the launch date of the first mission is listed. The list is based on the nationality of the person at the time of the spaceflight. Only 3 of the 38 "first flyers" have been women...

in the world to have an astronaut in space. That astronaut, Dumitru Prunariu

Dumitru Prunariu

Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu is a retired Romanian astronaut who flew aboard Soyuz 40.-Early life and career:Born on September 27, 1952 in Braşov, Romania, Prunariu graduated from the Physics and Mathematics high school in Braşov in 1971 and from the University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest in 1976,...

is today's president of Romanian Space Agency

Romanian Space Agency

The Romanian Space Agency is the Romanian national Coordinator for space-related technology, activities and programs since 1991....

.
On March 18, 1906 Traian Vuia

Traian Vuia

Traian Vuia was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer who designed, builtand flew an early aircraft. His first flight traveled about 12 m at Montesson, France on March 18, 1906...

said he achieved a short hop at a height of about 1 foot. His flight was performed in Montesson

Montesson

Montesson is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris.-External links:* http://www.fotw.net/flags/fr-78-ms.html...

near Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and was about 12 metres long.

Henri Coandă

Henri Coanda

Henri Marie Coandă was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910 described by Coandă in the mid-1950s as the world's first jet, a controversial claim disputed by some and supported by others...

was another Romanian inventor and pioneer of aviation. He exhibited the non-flying Coanda-1910

Coanda-1910

The Coandă-1910, designed by Romanian inventor Henri Coandă, was the first full-size attempt at a jet aircraft. Built as a sesquiplane, it featured an experimental aircraft engine which Coandă called the "turbo-propulseur," a centrifugal compressor propulsion system with a multi-bladed rotary fan...

at the Second International Aeronautical Exhibition in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

around October 1910, and built his first flying aircraft in 1911. He discovered the Coanda effect

Coanda effect

The Coandă effect is the tendency of a fluid jet to be attracted to a nearby surface. The principle was named after Romanian aerodynamics pioneer Henri Coandă, who was the first to recognize the practical application of the phenomenon in aircraft development....

of fluidics.

George Emil Palade

George Emil Palade

George Emil Palade was a Romanian cell biologist. Described as "the most influential cell biologist ever", in 1974 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine, together with Albert Claude and Christian de Duve. The prize was granted for his innovations in electron microscopy and...

is a Romanian-born cell biologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...

in 1974 for his study of internal organization of such cell structures as mitochondria, chloroplasts, the Golgi apparatus

Golgi apparatus

The Golgi apparatus is an organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. It was identified in 1898 by the Italian physician Camillo Golgi, after whom the Golgi apparatus is named....

, and for the discovery of the ribosomes. He also won the National Medal of Science

National Medal of Science

The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...

in 1986.

George Constantinescu

George Constantinescu

George Constantinescu was a Romanian scientist, engineer and inventor. During his career, he registered over 130 inventions. He is the creator of the theory of sonics, a new branch of continuum mechanics, in which he described the transmission of mechanical energy through vibrations.Born in...

created the theory of sonics

Theory of sonics

The theory of sonics is a branch of continuum mechanics which describes the transmission of mechanical energy through vibrations. The birth of the theory of sonics can be considered the publication of the book A treatise on transmission of power by vibrations in 1918 by the Romanian scientist Gogu...

, while Lazăr Edeleanu

Lazar Edeleanu

Lazăr Edeleanu was a Romanian chemist of Jewish origin.He was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine at the University of Berlin and the inventor of the modern method of refining crude oil.- His childhood and studies:...

was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine

Amphetamine

Amphetamine or amfetamine is a psychostimulant drug of the phenethylamine class which produces increased wakefulness and focus in association with decreased fatigue and appetite.Brand names of medications that contain, or metabolize into, amphetamine include Adderall, Dexedrine, Dextrostat,...

and also invented the modern method of refining

Oil refinery

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, asphalt base, heating oil, kerosene, and liquefied petroleum gas...

crude oil.

Several mathematicians

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

distinguished themselves as well, among them: Acad.Gheorghe Ţiţeica

Gheorghe Titeica

Gheorghe Ţiţeica publishing as George or Georges Tzitzeica) was a Romanian mathematician with important contributions in geometry. He is recognized as the founder of the Romanian school of differential geometry....

, Spiru Haret

Spiru Haret

Spiru C. Haret was a Romanian mathematician, astronomer and politician. He made a fundamental contribution to the n-body problem in celestial mechanics by proving that using a third degree approximation for the disturbing forces implies instability of the major axes of the orbits, and by...

, Acad. Grigore Moisil

Grigore Moisil

Grigore Constantin Moisil was a Romanian mathematician, computer pioneer, and member of the Romanian Academy. His research was mainly in the fields of mathematical logic, , Algebraic logic, MV-algebra, algebra and differential equations...

(multi-valued logic

Multi-valued logic

In logic, a many-valued logic is a propositional calculus in which there are more than two truth values. Traditionally, in Aristotle's logical calculus, there were only two possible values for any proposition...

s), Acad.Miron Nicolescu

Miron Nicolescu

Miron Nicolescu was a Romanian mathematician.Born in Giurgiu, he attended the Matei Basarab high school in Bucharest. After completing his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Bucharest in 1924, he went to Paris, where he enrolled at the École Normale...

, Acad.Nicolae Popescu

Nicolae Popescu

Nicolae Popescu was a Romanian mathematician and Emeritus Professor. Popescu was elected a Member of the Romanian Academy in 1992. He is best known for his contributions to Algebra and the theory of Abelian categories. Since 1964 and until 2007 he collaborated on the characterization of abelian...

(category theory

Category theory

Category theory is an area of study in mathematics that examines in an abstract way the properties of particular mathematical concepts, by formalising them as collections of objects and arrows , where these collections satisfy certain basic conditions...

applications to rings and modules, and number theory; Popesco-Gabriel Theorem), George Georgescu ( Łukasiewicz logic algebras in categories), Florin Boca (quantum group

Quantum group

In mathematics and theoretical physics, the term quantum group denotes various kinds of noncommutative algebra with additional structure. In general, a quantum group is some kind of Hopf algebra...

s and C*-algebras), Liliana Elena Popescu (category theory

Category theory

and computing

Computing

Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...

/model

Mathematical model

A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used not only in the natural sciences and engineering disciplines A mathematical model is a...

ling theory), Madalina Buneci (groupoid and double groupoid representations

Groupoid

In mathematics, especially in category theory and homotopy theory, a groupoid generalises the notion of group in several equivalent ways. A groupoid can be seen as a:...

) and Ştefan Odobleja

Stefan Odobleja

Ştefan Odobleja was a Romanian scientist, one of the precursors of cybernetics. His major work, Psychologie consonantiste, first published in 1938 and 1939, in Paris, had established many of the major themes of cybernetics regarding cybernetics and systems thinking ten years before the work of...

; the latter is also regarded as the ideological father behind cybernetics

Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...

.
Notable Romanian physicists and inventors also include: Horia Hulubei

Horia Hulubei

Horia Hulubei was a Romanian atomic/nuclear physicist, known for his contributions to the development of X-ray spectroscopy.-Education:He studied at the University of Iaşi and in Paris at the Sorbonne, with the Nobel laureate Jean Perrin as his PhD advisor; he obtained his Ph.D. from the...

in atomic physics, Șerban Țițeica in theoretical physics, especially thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, Mihai Gavrilă

Mihai Gavrilă

Mihai Gavrilă is a Romanian quantum physicist, member of the Romanian Academy since 1974. He made fundamental contributions to quantum theories of electromagnetic interactions with atoms. His parents were Ion and Florica Gavrilă...

in quantum theory, Alexandru Proca

Alexandru Proca

Alexandru Proca was a Romanian physicist who studied and worked in France. He developed the vector meson theory of nuclear forces and the relativistic quantum field equations that bear his name for the massive, vector spin-1 mesons...

known for the first meson theory of nuclear forces and Proca's equations of the vectorial mesonic field, formulated independently of the pion theory of Nobel laureate Hideki Yukawa

Hideki Yukawa

né , was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate.-Biography:Yukawa was born in Tokyo and grew up in Kyoto. In 1929, after receiving his degree from Kyoto Imperial University, he stayed on as a lecturer for four years. After graduation, he was interested in...

(who predicted the existence of the pion

Pion

In particle physics, a pion is any of three subatomic particles: , , and . Pions are the lightest mesons and they play an important role in explaining the low-energy properties of the strong nuclear force....

in 1947), Ştefan Procopiu

Stefan Procopiu

-Biography:Procopiu was born in 1890 in Bârlad, Romania. His father, Emanoil Procopiu, was employed at the Bârlad courthouse. His mother, Ecaterina Tașcă was the daughter of Gheorghe I...

known for the first theory of the magnetic moment of the electron in 1911 (now known as the Bohr-Procopiu magneton), Theodor V. Ionescu

Theodor V. Ionescu

Theodor V. Ionescu, Prof. Dr. Doc. was a Romanian physicist and inventor who made remarkable discoveries in plasma physics, ionosphere physics, ion coupling electrons in dense plasmas, masers, magnetron amplifiers, and Zeeman effects related to controlled nuclear fusion and quantum emission...

- the inventor of a multiple-cavity magnetron in 1935, a hydrogen maser

Maser

A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. Historically, “maser” derives from the original, upper-case acronym MASER, which stands for "Microwave Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation"...

in 1947, 3D imaging

Stereoscopy

Stereoscopy refers to a technique for creating or enhancing the illusion of depth in an image by presenting two offset images separately to the left and right eye of the viewer. Both of these 2-D offset images are then combined in the brain to give the perception of 3-D depth...

for cinema/television in 1924, quantum emission in hot plasmas and hot deuterium plasma beams for controlled nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion

Nuclear fusion is the process by which two or more atomic nuclei join together, or "fuse", to form a single heavier nucleus. This is usually accompanied by the release or absorption of large quantities of energy...

in 1969, Ionel Solomon known for the nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance

Nuclear magnetic resonance is a physical phenomenon in which magnetic nuclei in a magnetic field absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation...

theory in solids in 1955, Solomon equations, solid state physics, semiconductors in 1979,, and photovoltaics since 1988, Mircea Sabău and Florentina I. Mosora

Florentina Mosora

Florentina Ioana Mosora or Florentina Stan-Mosora was a Romanian and Belgian biophysicist. In her earlier years, before 1964, she was a film actress in the Romanian film industry.-Biography:...

known for their contributions to Nuclear Medicine

Nuclear medicine

In nuclear medicine procedures, elemental radionuclides are combined with other elements to form chemical compounds, or else combined with existing pharmaceutical compounds, to form radiopharmaceuticals. These radiopharmaceuticals, once administered to the patient, can localize to specific organs...

, Petrache Poenaru

Petrache Poenaru

Petrache Poenaru was a Romanian inventor of the Enlightenment era.Poenaru, who had studied in Paris and Vienna and, later, completed his specialized studies in England, was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, teacher and organizer of the educational system, as well as a politician,...

, Nicolae Teclu

Nicolae Teclu

Nicolae Teclu ; was a Romanian chemist, who gave his name to the worldwide-used "Teclu burner". He studied engineering and architecture, and then chemistry, continuing his career by becoming professor for general and analytical chemistry in Vienna...

and Victor Toma, with the latter known for the invention and construction of the first Romanian computer, the CIFA-1 in 1955. At the beginning of the second millennium, there was a boom in Romania in the number of computer programmers. Romania is reported to be among the countries with the highest number of computer programmers in the world. Some examples of successful software include RAV (Romanian AntiVirus) which was bought in 2003 by Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

for use in their development of Windows Defender

Windows Defender

Windows Defender, formerly known as Microsoft AntiSpyware, is a software product from Microsoft to prevent, remove, and quarantine spyware in Microsoft Windows...

; or BitDefender

BitDefender

BitDefender is an antivirus software suite developed by Romania-based software company Softwin. It was launched in November 2001, and is currently in its 15 build version...

which is considered the number one antivirus software and internet security software at TopTenReviews.

See also