Science and technology in Romania is well developed, with the presence of several universities and research institutes, and has 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. It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and ''World Business'', a British ma ...

in 2021, up from 50th in 2019.

Aviation and aeronautics

On March 18, 1906

Traian Vuia Traian Vuia or Trajan Vuia (; August 17, 1872 – September 3, 1950) was a Romanian inventor and aviation pioneer who designed, built and tested the first tractor monoplane. He was the first to demonstrate that a flying machine could rise into the ...

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, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

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 described by Coandă in the mid-1950s as the world's first jet, a co ...

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 dri ...

at the Second International Aeronautical Exhibition in

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

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

, 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 candida ...

later served as president of the Romanian Space Agency.

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, accord ...

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

chloroplasts A chloroplast () is a type of membrane-bound organelle known as a plastid that conducts photosynthesis mostly in plant and algal cells. The photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll captures the energy from sunlight, converts it, and stores it in ...

, 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 cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it packages proteins into membrane-bound vesicles ...

, and for the discovery of the

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

. 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 and social scienc ...

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. He is the creator of the ''theory of son ...

created the

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

, while Lazăr Edeleanu was the first chemist to synthesize amphetamine and also invented the modern method of refining 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,

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 Mathematical ...

, Octav Onicescu,

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. He studied at the University of Iași, receiving his ...

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 ...

, Gheorghe Țițeica, 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 of ...

s and C*-algebras 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 (the initiator of the field of

Free probability Free probability is a mathematical theory that studies non-commutative random variables. The "freeness" or free independence property is the analogue of the classical notion of independence, and it is connected with free products. This theory was in ...

), whose tradition has continued with

Sorin Popa Sorin Teodor Popa (24 March 1953) is a Romanian American mathematician working on operator algebras. He is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Biography Popa earned his PhD from the University of Bucharest in 1983 under the s ...

, Adrian Ioana, Adrian Ocneanu, Florin Boca, and others. Research in

algebra Algebra () is one of the broad areas of mathematics. Roughly speaking, algebra is the study of mathematical symbols and the rules for manipulating these symbols in formulas; it is a unifying thread of almost all of mathematics. Elementary ...

and algebraic geometry 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 corresp ...

(of

Gabriel–Popescu theorem In mathematics, the Gabriel–Popescu theorem is an embedding theorem for certain abelian categories, introduced by . It characterizes certain abelian categories (the Grothendieck categories) as quotients of module categories. There are several ...

fame), Alexandru Dimca, Mircea Mustață, and

Mihnea Popa Mihnea Popa (born 11 August 1973) is a Romanian-American mathematician at Harvard University, specializing in algebraic geometry. He is known for his work on complex birational geometry, Hodge theory, abelian varieties, and vector bundles. Aca ...

, 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 membe ...

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 in ...

(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 c ...

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 Senior Researcher at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy ...

, and

Alina Carmen Cojocaru Alina Carmen Cojocaru is a Romanian mathematician who works in number theory and is known for her research on elliptic curves, arithmetic geometry, and sieve theory. She is a professor of mathematics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a ...

. Research in the fields of

topology In mathematics, topology (from the Greek words , and ) is concerned with the properties of a geometric object that are preserved under continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, crumpling, and bending; that is, without closing ...

, symplectic geometry,

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 th ...

, 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 group (mathematics), groups and topology, topological and geometry, geometric pro ...

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 tau ...

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 di ...

, Henri Moscovici, Tudor Ratiu,

Eleny Ionel Eleny-Nicoleta Ionel is a Romanian mathematician whose research concerns symplectic geometry, including the study of the Gromov–Witten invariants and Gopakumar–Vafa invariant. Among her most significant results are the construction of relati ...

, 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 Manoles ...

(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 triangulations of a triangulable space have subdivisions that are combinatorially equivalent, i.e. the subdivided triangulations are built up in the s ...

). 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 (m ...

, complex analysis,

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...

, and

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

appears in the works of Cabiria Andreian Cazacu,

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, w ...

, Daniel Tătaru, Matei Machedon, Monica Vișan, and

Ioana Dumitriu Ioana Dumitriu (born July 6, 1976) is a Romanian-American mathematician who works as a professor of mathematics at the University of California, San Diego. Notable Romanian physicists and inventors also include:

Horia Hulubei Horia Hulubei (; 15 November 1896 – 22 November 1972) was a Romanian nuclear physicist, known for his contributions to the development of X-ray spectroscopy. Education and military service Born in Iași, he graduated in 1915 first in his clas ...

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 was a Japanese theoretical physicist and the first Japanese Nobel laureate for his prediction of the pi meson, or pion. Biography He was born as Hideki Ogawa in Tokyo and grew up in Kyoto with two older brothers, two older sisters, and two yo ...

(who predicted the existence of the

pion In particle physics, a pion (or a pi meson, denoted with the Greek 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 lightest mesons and, more gene ...

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 currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field while ...

in 1935, a hydrogen

maser A maser (, an acronym for microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) is a device that produces coherent electromagnetic waves through amplification by stimulated emission. The first maser was built by Charles H. Townes, Ja ...

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 ...

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

nuclear fusion Nuclear fusion is a reaction in which two or more atomic nuclei are combined to form one or more different atomic nuclei and subatomic particles ( neutrons or protons). The difference in mass between the reactants and products is manife ...

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 perturbed 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, Romania – 2 February 1996 in Liège, Belgium) was a Romanian and Belgian biophysicist. In her earlier years, before 1964, she was a film actress in the Romanian fil ...

known for their contributions to

nuclear medicine Nuclear medicine or nucleology is a medical specialty involving the application of radioactive substances in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Nuclear imaging, in a sense, is " radiology done inside out" because it records radiation emi ...

, Petrache Poenaru, Nicolae Teclu and Monica Guică.

Computer science and technology

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

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

is viewed as the father of

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

in Romania. Another mathematician, Cristian S. Calude is known for his work on

algorithmic information theory Algorithmic information theory (AIT) is a branch of theoretical computer science that concerns itself with the relationship between computation and information of computably generated objects (as opposed to stochastically generated), such as str ...

, 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 second millennium, there was a boom in Romania in the number of

computer programmers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

. 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 technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

for use in their development of

Windows Defender Microsoft Defender Antivirus (formerly Windows Defender) is an anti-malware 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. It has ...

, and

BitDefender Bitdefender is a Romanian cybersecurity technology company headquartered in Bucharest, Romania, with offices in the United States, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. The company was founded in 2001 by the current CEO and main shareholder, ...

, 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

Computer science and technology

See also

Notes