Victor Vâlcovici

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, where he had as teachers Spiru Haret and Gheorghe Țițeica.^[1] After graduating in 1907 with a degree in mathematics, he 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),^[2][3][4] amplified upon the work of Bernhard Riemann.^[5]

He was subsequently named assistant professor of mechanics at the University of Iași, rising to full professor in 1918.^[6] 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.^[5] During his nine years as rector, he worked to place the recently founded university on a solid foundation.^[6] From 1930 until retiring in 1962, he taught experimental mechanics at the University of Bucharest.^[5] 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.^[5][6] In 1936 he gave an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Oslo, with title Sur le sillage derrière un obstacle circulaire (In the wake of a circular obstacle).^[7]

Elected a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy in 1936,^[8] he was stripped of his membership by the new communist regime in 1948,^[9]: 123 but made a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 1965.^[10] 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.^[5]

He died in 1970 in Bucharest, and was buried in the city's Bellu Cemetery. Streets have been named after Victor Vâlcovici in Brăila, Galați, and Timișoara; a school in Galați also bears his name.

• Vâlcovici, Victor (1958). Une extension des liaisons non holonomes et des principes variationnels (in French). De Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783112498545. ISBN 978-3-11-249854-5. MR 0090218. S2CID 118604371.
• Vâlcovici, Victor (1971). Mecanica fluidelor și teoria elasticității (in Romanian). București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România. OCLC 886523167.

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

• "Valcovici, Victor (1885–1970)". www.dmg-lib.org. Retrieved February 16, 2022.