Science and technology are well developed in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

, with the presence of several universities and research institutes, and have a distinguished tradition going back more than a century. Romania was ranked 48th in the

Global Innovation Index The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for and success in innovation, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and ''World Business'', a Britis ...

in 2024.

Aviation and aeronautics

On March 18, 1906

Traian Vuia Traian Vuia or Trajan Vuia (; 17 August 1872 – 3 September 1950) was a Romanian inventor and List of aviation pioneers, aviation pioneer who designed, built, and tested the first tractor configuration, tractor monoplane. He was the first to de ...

achieved a short hop at a height of about . His flight was performed in

Montesson Montesson () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris. Transport in Montesson is served by buses with T-tickets as well as by several Paris-subur ...

near

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and was about long.

Henri Coandă Henri Marie Coandă (; 7 June 1886 – 25 November 1972)''Flight'' 1973 was a Romanian inventor, aerodynamics pioneer, and builder of an experimental aircraft, the Coandă-1910, which never flew. He invented a great number of devices, designed ...

was a Romanian inventor and pioneer of aviation. He exhibited the non-flying

Coandă-1910 The Coandă-1910, designed by Romanian inventor Henri Coandă, was an unconventional sesquiplane aircraft powered by a ducted fan. Called the "turbo-propulseur" by Coandă, its experimental engine consisted of a conventional piston engine ...

at the Second International Aeronautical Exhibition in

in October 1910, and built his first flying aircraft in 1911. He discovered the

Coandă effect The Coandă effect ( or ) is the tendency of a jet (fluid), fluid jet to stay attached to a surface of any form. ''Merriam-Webster'' describes it as "the tendency of a jet of fluid emerging from an orifice to follow an adjacent flat or curved s ...

fluidics Fluidics, or fluidic logic, is the use of a fluid to perform analog signal, analog or Digital data, digital operations similar to those performed with electronics. The physical basis of fluidics is pneumatics and hydraulics, based on the theore ...

, and was the first to recognize the practical application of the phenomenon in aircraft design. On May 14, 1981, Romania became the 11th country in the world to have an astronaut in space. That astronaut,

Dumitru Prunariu Dumitru-Dorin Prunariu (; born 27 September 1952) is a Romanian cosmonaut. He flew in space aboard Soyuz 40 spacecraft and Salyut 6 space laboratory. He teamed with the Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Popov. The backup crew was made of Romanian candidat ...

later served as president of the

Romanian Space Agency The Romanian Space Agency (ROSA; ) is a public institution that coordinates Romania's national space technology. ROSA, established in 1991, is subordinate to the Romanian Ministry of Education. ROSA is not a representative of the Romanian Gov ...

Biology, chemistry and medicine

George Emil Palade was a Romanian-born cell biologist who won the

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...

in 1974 for his study of internal organization of such cell structures as

mitochondria A mitochondrion () is an organelle found in the cells of most eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and fungi. Mitochondria have a double membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP), which is us ...

chloroplasts A chloroplast () is a type of membrane-bound organelle, organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant cell, plant and algae, algal cells. Chloroplasts have a high concentration of chlorophyll pigments which captur ...

, the

Golgi apparatus The Golgi apparatus (), also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic Cell (biology), cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it protein targeting, packages proteins ...

, and for the discovery of the

ribosomes Ribosomes () are macromolecular machines, found within all cells, that perform biological protein synthesis (messenger RNA translation). Ribosomes link amino acids together in the order specified by the codons of messenger RNA molecules to fo ...

. He also won the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral science, behavior ...

in 1986.

George Constantinescu George "Gogu" Constantinescu (; last name also Constantinesco; 4 October 1881 – 11 December 1965) was a Romanian scientist, engineer, and inventor. During his career, he registered over 130 inventions. Constantinescu was the creator of the ' ...

created the

theory of sonics The theory of sonics is a branch of continuum mechanics which describes the transmission of mechanical energy through oscillation, vibrations. The birth of the theory of sonics is the publication of the book ''A treatise on transmission of power b ...

, while

Lazăr Edeleanu Lazăr Edeleanu (; 1 September 1861, Bucharest – 7 April 1941, Bucharest) was a Romanian chemist of Jewish origin. at www.romanianjewish.org He is known for being the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine at the University of Berlin and for ...

was the first chemist to synthesize

amphetamine Amphetamine (contracted from Alpha and beta carbon, alpha-methylphenethylamine, methylphenethylamine) is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, an ...

and also invented the modern method of

refining Refining is the process of purification of a (1) substance or a (2) form. The term is usually used of a natural resource that is almost in a usable form, but which is more useful in its pure form. For instance, most types of natural petroleum w ...

crude oil.

Mathematics

Mathematics research in Romania started in the late 19th century and the early 20th century with the work of

Spiru Haret Spiru C. Haret (; 15 February 1851 – 17 December 1912) was a Romanian mathematician, astronomer, and politician. He made a fundamental contribution to the ''n''-body problem in celestial mechanics by proving that using a third degree approx ...

, Traian Lalescu,

Octav Mayer Octav Mayer ( – 9 September 1966) was a Romanian mathematician, the first to earn a doctorate in Romania. Born in Mizil, Prahova County, Mayer went to the primary school in Târgu Neamț and pursued his studies in an elementary school in F ...

Miron Nicolescu Miron Nicolescu (; August 27, 1903 – June 30, 1975) was a Romanian mathematician, best known for his work in real analysis and differential equations. He was president of the Romanian Academy and vice-president of the International Mathematica ...

Octav Onicescu Octav Onicescu (; August 20, 1892 – August 19, 1983) was a Romanian mathematician and a member of the Romanian Academy. Together with his student, Gheorghe Mihoc, he is considered to be the founder of the Romanian school of probability theory ...

Dimitrie Pompeiu Dimitrie D. Pompeiu (; – 8 October 1954) was a Romanian mathematician, professor at the University of Bucharest, titular member of the Romanian Academy, and President of the Chamber of Deputies. Biography He was born in 1873 in Broscăuți, ...

Isaac Jacob Schoenberg Isaac Jacob Schoenberg (April 21, 1903 – February 21, 1990) was a Romanian-American mathematician, known for his invention of splines. Life and career Schoenberg was born in Galați to a Jewish family, the youngest of four children. He st ...

Simion Stoilow Simion Stoilow or Stoilov ( – 4 April 1961) was a Romanian mathematician, creator of the Romanian school of complex analysis, and author of over 100 publications. Biography He was born in Bucharest, and grew up in Craiova. His father, Colonel S ...

Gheorghe Țițeica Gheorghe Țițeica (; 4 October 1873 – 5 February 1939) publishing as George or Georges Tzitzéica) was a Romanian mathematician who made important contributions in geometry. He is recognized as the founder of the Romanian school of differential ...

, and

Gheorghe Vrănceanu Gheorghe Vrănceanu (June 30, 1900 – April 27, 1979) was a Romanian mathematician, best known for his work in differential geometry and topology. He was titular member of the Romanian Academy and vice-president of the International Mathematical ...

. In the second half of the 20th century, there was a tremendous increase of research activity and international visibility. A very strong school of

operator algebra In functional analysis, a branch of mathematics, an operator algebra is an algebra of continuous linear operators on a topological vector space, with the multiplication given by the composition of mappings. The results obtained in the study o ...

s and

C*-algebra In mathematics, specifically in functional analysis, a C∗-algebra (pronounced "C-star") is a Banach algebra together with an involution satisfying the properties of the adjoint. A particular case is that of a complex algebra ''A'' of contin ...

s developed around

Ciprian Foias Ciprian Ilie Foiaș (20 July 1933 – 22 March 2020) was a Romanian-American mathematician. He was awarded the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics in 1995, for his contributions in operator theory. Education and career Born in Reșița, ...

and

Dan-Virgil Voiculescu Dan-Virgil Voiculescu (; born 14 June 1949) is a Romanian professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked in single operator theory, operator K-theory and von Neumann algebras. More recently, he developed free pro ...

(the initiator of the field of

Free probability Free probability is a mathematics, mathematical theory that studies non-commutative random variables. The "freeness" or free independence property is the analogue of the classical notion of statistical independence, independence, and it is connecte ...

), whose tradition has continued with

Sorin Popa Sorin Teodor Popa (born 24 March 1953) is a Romanian American mathematician working on operator algebras. He is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. He was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025. Biograph ...

, Adrian Ioana,

Adrian Ocneanu The ''Octacube'' is a large, stainless steel sculpture displayed in the mathematics department of Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA. The sculpture represents a mathematical object called the 24-cell or "octacube". Because a rea ...

, Florin Boca, and others. Research in

algebra Algebra is a branch of mathematics that deals with abstract systems, known as algebraic structures, and the manipulation of expressions within those systems. It is a generalization of arithmetic that introduces variables and algebraic ope ...

and

algebraic geometry Algebraic geometry is a branch of mathematics which uses abstract algebraic techniques, mainly from commutative algebra, to solve geometry, geometrical problems. Classically, it studies zero of a function, zeros of multivariate polynomials; th ...

is represented in the works of mathematicians such as

Nicolae Popescu Nicolae Popescu (; 22 September 1937 – 29 July 2010) was a Romanian mathematician and professor at the University of Bucharest. He also held a research position at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, and was elected correspo ...

(of

Gabriel–Popescu theorem In mathematics, the Gabriel–Popescu theorem is an embedding theorem for certain abelian category, abelian categories, introduced by . It characterizes certain abelian categories (the Grothendieck category, Grothendieck categories) as Quotient of a ...

fame), Alexandru Dimca, Mircea Mustață, and Mihnea Popa, while research in number theory is represented by

Florian Pop Florian Pop (born 1952 in Zalău) is a Romanian mathematician, a professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania. Pop received his Ph.D. in 1987 and his habilitation in 1991, both from the University of Heidelberg. He has been a memb ...

Preda Mihăilescu Preda V. Mihăilescu (born 23 May 1955) is a Romanian mathematician, best known for his proof of the 158-year-old Catalan's conjecture. Biography Born in Bucharest,Stewart 2013 he is the brother of Vintilă Mihăilescu. After leaving Romania i ...

(proof of

Catalan's conjecture Catalan's conjecture (or Mihăilescu's theorem) is a theorem in number theory that was conjectured by the mathematician Eugène Charles Catalan in 1844 and proven in 2002 by Preda Mihăilescu at Paderborn University. The integers 23 and 32 ...

Cristian Dumitru Popescu Cristian Dumitru Popescu (born 1964) is a Romanian-American mathematician at the University of California, San Diego. His research interests are in algebraic number theory, and in particular, in special values of L-functions. Education and ca ...

Alexandru Zaharescu Alexandru Zaharescu (born June 4, 1961) is a Romanian mathematician. He is a professor in the Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, and a Honorary Member at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy. H ...

, and Alina Carmen Cojocaru. Research in the fields of

topology Topology (from the Greek language, Greek words , and ) is the branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of a Mathematical object, geometric object that are preserved under Continuous function, continuous Deformation theory, deformat ...

symplectic geometry Symplectic geometry is a branch of differential geometry and differential topology that studies symplectic manifolds; that is, differentiable manifolds equipped with a closed, nondegenerate 2-form. Symplectic geometry has its origins in the ...

global analysis In mathematics, global analysis, also called analysis on manifolds, is the study of the global and topological properties of differential equations on manifolds and vector bundles. Global analysis uses techniques in infinite-dimensional manifold ...

, and

geometric group theory Geometric group theory is an area in mathematics devoted to the study of finitely generated groups via exploring the connections between algebraic properties of such groups and topological and geometric properties of spaces on which these group ...

has been pursued my mathematicians such as

Tudor Ganea Tudor Ganea (October 17, 1922 –August 1971) was a Romanian-American mathematician, known for his work in algebraic topology, especially homotopy theory. Ganea left Communist Romania to settle in the United States in the early 1960s. He taugh ...

Valentin Poénaru Valentin Alexandre Poénaru (born 1932 in Bucharest) is a Romanian– French mathematician. He was a Professor of Mathematics at University of Paris-Sud, specializing in low-dimensional topology. Life and career Born in Bucharest, Romania, he d ...

, Henri Moscovici, Tudor Ratiu,

Eleny Ionel Eleny-Nicoleta Ionel (born April 1969) is a Romanian mathematician whose research concerns symplectic geometry, including the study of the Gromov–Witten invariants and Gopakumar–Vafa invariants. Among her most significant results are the p ...

, Cornelia Druțu, and

Ciprian Manolescu Ciprian Manolescu (; born December 24, 1978) is a Romanian-American mathematician, working in gauge theory, symplectic geometry, and low-dimensional topology. He is currently a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Biography Manolescu ...

(known for his application of Seiberg–Witten Floer theory to the

Hauptvermutung The ''Hauptvermutung'' of geometric topology is a now refuted conjecture asking whether any two Triangulation (topology), triangulations of a triangulable space have subdivisions that are combinatorially equivalent, i.e. the subdivided triangulati ...

). Finally, strong research in

mathematical analysis Analysis is the branch of mathematics dealing with continuous functions, limit (mathematics), limits, and related theories, such as Derivative, differentiation, Integral, integration, measure (mathematics), measure, infinite sequences, series ( ...

complex analysis Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebraic ...

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which involves a multivariable function and one or more of its partial derivatives. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" that solves the equation, similar to how ...

, and

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

appears in the works of

Cabiria Andreian Cazacu Cabiria Andreian Cazacu (February 19, 1928 – May 22, 2018) was a Romanian mathematician known for her work in complex analysis. She held the chair in mathematical analysis at the University of Bucharest from 1973 to 1975, and was dean of the fa ...

Sergiu Klainerman Sergiu Klainerman (born May 13, 1950) is a mathematician known for his contributions to the study of hyperbolic differential equations and general relativity. He is currently the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, ...

Daniel Tătaru Daniel Ioan Tătaru (born 6 May 1967) is a Romanian mathematician at University of California, Berkeley. He was born in Piatra Neamț. As a student at the Petru Rareș High School, he won the National Mathematical Olympiad three times and the I ...

, Matei Machedon,

Monica Vișan Monica Vișan (born August 5, 1979, in Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Romania) is a Romanian mathematician at the University of California, Los Angeles who specializes in partial differential equations and is well known for her work on the nonlinear Schrö ...

, and Ioana Dumitriu.

Physics

Notable Romanian physicists and inventors also include: Horia Hulubei in atomic physics,

Șerban Țițeica Șerban Țițeica ( – May 28, 1985) was a Romanian quantum physicist. He is regarded as the founder of the Romanian school of theoretical physics. The third and last child of mathematician Gheorghe Țițeica, he was born in Bucharest, where h ...

in theoretical physics, especially thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, Mihai Gavrilă in quantum theory,

Alexandru Proca Alexandru Proca (16 October 1897 – 13 December 1955) was a Romanian physicist who studied and worked in France. He developed the vector meson theory of nuclear forces and the Relativistic wave equations, relativistic quantum field equations tha ...

known for the first meson theory of nuclear forces and Proca's equations of the vectorial mesonic field, formulated independently of the pion theory of Nobel laureate

Hideki Yukawa Hideki Yukawa (; ; 23 January 1907 – 8 September 1981) was a Japanese theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1949 "for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces". B ...

(who predicted the existence of the

pion In particle physics, a pion (, ) or pi meson, denoted with the Greek alphabet, Greek letter pi (letter), pi (), is any of three subatomic particles: , , and . Each pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is therefore a meson. Pions are the ...

in 1947), Ştefan Procopiu known for the first theory of the magnetic moment of the electron in 1911 (now known as the Bohr-Procopiu magneton), Theodor V. Ionescu – the inventor of a multiple-cavity

magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and subsequently in microwave oven, microwave ovens and in linear particle accelerators. A cavity magnetron generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of ...

in 1935, a hydrogen

maser A maser is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves ( microwaves), through amplification by stimulated emission. The term is an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. Nikolay Basov, Alexander Pr ...

in 1947,

3D imaging In computer vision and computer graphics, 3D reconstruction is the process of capturing the shape and appearance of real objects. This process can be accomplished either by active or passive methods. If the model is allowed to change its shape i ...

for cinema/television in 1924, quantum emission in hot plasmas and hot deuterium plasma beams for controlled

nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a nuclear reaction, reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei combine to form a larger nuclei, nuclei/neutrons, neutron by-products. The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manifested as either the rele ...

in 1969, known for the

nuclear magnetic resonance Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a physical phenomenon in which nuclei in a strong constant magnetic field are disturbed by a weak oscillating magnetic field (in the near field) and respond by producing an electromagnetic signal with a ...

theory in solids in 1955, the Solomon equations, solid state physics, semiconductors in 1979, and photovoltaics since 1988, Mircea Sabău and

Florentina Mosora Florentina Ioana Mosora or Florentina Stan-Mosora (7 January 1940 in Cluj-Napoca, Cluj, Romania – 2 February 1996 in Liège, Belgium) was a Romanian and Belgian Biophysics, biophysicist. In her earlier years, before 1964, she was a film act ...

known for their contributions to

nuclear medicine Nuclear medicine (nuclear radiology, nucleology), is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactivity, radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging is, in a sense, ''radiology done inside out'', ...

Petrache Poenaru Petrache Poenaru (; 10 January 1799 – 2 October 1875) was a Romanian inventor. Poenaru, who had studied in Paris and Vienna and, later, completed his specialized studies in England, was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, teacher a ...

Nicolae Teclu Nicolae Teclu (); (11 October 1839, Kronstadt, Austrian Empire (today Brașov, Romania) – 13 July 1916, Vienna, Austria-Hungary) was a Romanian chemist, who gave his name to the worldwide-used " Teclu burner". He studied engineering and a ...

and Monica Guică.

Computer science and technology

Mathematician Ştefan Odobleja has been claimed to be one of the precursors of

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

, while

Grigore Moisil Grigore Constantin Moisil (; 10 January 1906 – 21 May 1973) was a Romanian mathematician, computer pioneer, and list of members of the Romanian Academy, titular member of the Romanian Academy. His research was mainly in the fields of mathemati ...

is viewed as the father of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

in Romania. Another mathematician, Cristian S. Calude is known for his work on algorithmic information theory, while physicist Victor Toma is known for the invention and construction of the first Romanian computer, the CIFA-1 in 1955. At the beginning of the third millennium, there was a boom in Romania in the number of

computer programmers A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...

. Romania is reported to be among the countries with the highest number of computer programmers in the world. Some examples of successful software include RAV (Romanian AntiVirus) which was bought in 2003 by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

for use in their development of

Windows Defender Microsoft Defender Antivirus (formerly Windows Defender) is an antivirus software component of Microsoft Windows. It was first released as a downloadable free anti-spyware program for Windows XP and was shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. ...

, and

BitDefender Bitdefender is a multinational cybersecurity technology company dual-headquartered in Bucharest, Romania and Santa Clara, California, with offices in the United States, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. The company was founded in 2001 by c ...

, which was considered the number one antivirus software and internet security software in a report from TopTenReviews.2008 Internet Security Suite Report
/ref>

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Science And Technology In Romania Economic history of Romania

Aviation and aeronautics

Biology, chemistry and medicine

Mathematics

Physics

Computer science and technology

See also

Notes