Victor Vâlcovici

Victor Vâlcovici (21 September [O.S. 9 September] 1885 – 21 June 1970) was a Romanian mechanician and mathematician.

The first-ever call from Bucharest to New York City, on December 25, 1931. Vâlcovici is first from the left, followed by Dimitrie I. Ghika, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Grigore Filipescu, president of the Romanian Telephone Company

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.