Victor Vâlcovici

Victor Vâlcovici (September 21, 1885–June 21, 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 Göttingen University on another scholarship to pursue a doctorate in mathematics. He defended his thesis in 1913; the topic was discontinuous flow of liquids in two free dimensions,^[1] and amplified upon the work of Bernhard Riemann.^[2]

He was subsequently named assistant professor of mechanics at Iași University, rising to full professor in 1918.^[3] 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.^[2] During his nine years as rector, he worked to place the recently founded university on a solid foundation.^[3] From 1930 until retiring in 1962, he taught experimental mechanics at Bucharest University.^[2] 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.^[2][3]

Elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1936,^[4] he was stripped of his membership by the new communist regime in 1948,^[5] but made a titular member in 1965.^[6] 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.^[2]

Notes

References

• Willi Hager, Hydraulicians in Europe (1800–2000), vol. 2. CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4665-5498-6
• (Romanian) Eufrosina Otlăcan, "Victor Vâlcovici (1885–1970) – savant și desăvârșit pedagog", NOEMA, vol. VI, 2007, pp. 124–29