VÂLCOVICI

ROMANIA (see also List of Individuals)

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21.9.1885 Galaţi/RO - 21.6.1970 Bucureşti/RO

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Victor Vâlcovici graduated as a physicist from the Bucharest University and then took his doctoral degree from the University of Göttingen in 1913. He was appointed after World War I professor of mechanics at Iaşi University, was from 1921 Dean of Timiş oara University, in parallel to his position as professor of rational mechanics. He founded the laboratory of mechanics and established Timiş oara Scientific Society. From 1930 he was a professor of experimental mechanics at Bucharest Technical University. In parallel, Vâlcovici was a Romanian Minister of Public Works from 1931 to 1932, in charge of national communications. During his short term, he initiated the modern road scheme of his country. He was elected Member of the Romanian Academy of Sciences in 1965, after having been awarded Honorary Scientist on the occasion of his retirement as a professor in 1962.

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Vâlcovici wrote numerous papers on theoretical and applied mechanics, such as on the principles of variational mechanics, the mechanics of ideal fluid flow, the theory of elasticity, and astronomy. His PhD thesis treated discontinuous flow as introduced by Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866) in the 1860s, and later perfected by scientists of the order of Richard von Mises (1883-1953) or Theodor von Karman (1881-1963). In 1914, Vâlcovici investigated frictionless incompressible fluid flow, whereas his 1937 work relates to the hydraulic loss of rigid bodies in viscous fluid flow. Together with two colleagues, he published in 1959 a noteworthy monograph on theoretical mechanics. The collected works of Vâlcovici were published in 1969 in three volumes.

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_{Iacob, C. (1970). Academicianul Victor Vâlcovici. Gazeta Matematica 75(9): 321-324. P}

_{Ionescu, S.N., ed. (1994). Vâlcovici, Victor. Who was who in twentieth century Romania: 303.}

_{East European monographs: Boulder CO.}

_{Vâlcovici, V. (1913). Über diskontinuierliche Flüssigkeitsbewegungen mit zwei freien Strahlen.}

_{Dieterich: Göttingen.}

_{Vâlcovici, V. (1914). Über die Bewegung inkompressibler, reibungsloser Flüssigkeiten. Bulletin de la Section Scietifique de l'Académie Roumaine 2: 101-107.}

_{Vâlcovici, V. (1937). Über die Widerstandswerte der Relativbewegung eines starren Körpers in einer zähen Flüssigkeit. ZAMM 17(3): 177-180.}

_{Vâlcovici, V. (1969). Opere. Academia Republici Socialiste România: Bucureşti. http://www.mathesis.ro/capital/en/htm/pers/personalitati/valcovici.htm http://wwwhttp://fmi.unibuc.ro/ro/prezentare/istoric/ .mathesis.ro/capital/en/htm/pers/personalitati/valcovici.htm http://fmi.unibuc.ro/ro/prezentare/istoric/ P}