Romania
This country is indeed placed at the crossroad of Central Europe (Mittel Europa).
Transylvania (Brasov, Timisoara) was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The
Kingdom of Romania was created in 1859, and became independent of the
Ottoman Empire in 1877. Present day Romania is a sovereign country of nearly
20 millions of inhabitants. Somewhat as a gross simplification, we could say that it
is a ‘‘Danubian’’ country with a Latin language, which is surrounded by countries
with different languages such as Bulgarian (close to Russian), basically Slavic
Serbo-croatian, and Hungarian. Probably because of its Latin background
Romania entertained strong intellectual links with France and Italy. In the post
WWII period Romania developed a special interest and true talent for the mathematics
of continuum mechanics in both solid and fluid mechanics with remarkable contributions
by L. Solomon in elasticity (cf. Solomon 1968), Caius Jacob
(PhD in Paris, 1935) in theoretical fluid mechanics (see also his magesterial book,
Jacob1959), Elie Carafoli (1901–1983, PhD in Paris 1928) in aerodynamics (cf.
Carafoli 1956), L. Dragos(PhD 1964 with C. Jacob) in magnetohydrodynamics
(Dragos 1975), and Grigoriu Moisil (1906–1973) considered to be the father of
computer science in Romania. Octav Onicescu (1892–1983) was instrumental in
developing various aspects of mechanical sciences including probabilistic aspects
and as an ambassador of Romanian mechanics in both West and East. He was
among those who conceived and effectively founded the International Centre of
Mechanical Sciences(CISM) in Udine.
In more recent times the centres of Bucarest, Iasi, and Cluj have been active in
modern continuum mechanics with studies in the theory and experiments in crystal
elasticity and defects (Teodosiu 1982), visco-plasticity (Critescu and Suliçiu
1982), the general thermo-mechanical approach to inelasticity (Cleja-Tigoiu and
Soós1990), polar media and thermoelasticity (e.g., Iesean and Scalia 1996), and
non-Newtonian fluids (Victor Tigoiu). All these studies are marked by a special
taste for good applied mathematics as entertained by the University of Bucarest
and the Romanian Academy of Sciences. This is well illustrated by the many
works of P. P. Teodorescu (with various interests, among others, in the dynamics
of elasticity and the application of distribution theory and group theory to
mechanics (cf. Teodorescu 1972, Teodorescu and Kecs 1974)) and Eugen Soós
150 10 European Miscellanei and Asia(1937–2001). The latter, with a PhD (1972) with
C. Jacob, was an appliedmathematician who mentored many (some already cited) young
researchers in theDepartment of Mathematics at the University of Bucarest and at the
Institute ofMathematics of the Romanian Academy of Sciences. He successfully contributed
to a large spectrum of research in both specialized fields (mechanics of composites,
anelasticity in finite strains, electromagnetic continua,) and mathematical
tools (tensor and spinor algebra), sometimes in co-operation with N. Cristescu and
P. P. Teodorescu (see Beju et al. 1983; Critescu et al. 2003). Finally, we note the
role played by Horia Ene (born 1941, PhD 1970 in Bucarest) who expanded the
theory of porous media with techniques of asymptotic periodic homogenisation
(cf. Ene and Polisevshi 1987)and who contributed to the re-organization of science
in Romania at the Ministry level after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship.
''Gerard A Maugin, Continuum Mechanics Through the Twentieth Century A Concise Historical Perspective"