Solomon Marcus (; 1 March 1925 – 17 March 2016) was a

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 ...

n mathematician, member of the Mathematical Section of the

Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its bylaws, the academy's ma ...

(full member from 2001) and emeritus professor of the

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest (UB) () is a public university, public research university in Bucharest, Romania. It was founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princely Academy of Bucharest, P ...

's Faculty of Mathematics. His main research was in the fields of

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 ( ...

, mathematical and

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics ...

and

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, ...

. He also published numerous papers on various cultural topics:

poetics Poetics is the study or theory of poetry, specifically the study or theory of device, structure, form, type, and effect with regards to poetry, though usage of the term can also refer to literature broadly. Poetics is distinguished from hermeneu ...

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

semiotics Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is a ...

, philosophy, and

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient history, ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural science, natural, social science, social, and formal science, formal. Pr ...

and education.

Early life and education

He was born in

Bacău Bacău ( ; , ; ; ) is the main city in Bacău County, Romania. With a population of 136,087 (as of 2021 census), Bacău is the 14th largest city in Romania. The city is situated in the historical region of Moldavia, at the foothills of the ...

, Romania, to Sima and Alter Marcus, a

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

family of tailors. From an early age he had to live through dictatorships, war, infringements on free speech and free thinking as well as

anti-Semitism Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

. At the age of 16 or 17 he started tutoring younger pupils in order to help his family financially. He graduated from Ferdinand I High School in 1944, and completed his studies at the

's Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics, in 1949. He continued tutoring throughout college and later recounted in an interview that he had to endure hunger during those years and that till the age of 20 he only wore hand-me-downs from his older brothers.

Academic career

Marcus obtained his PhD in Mathematics in 1956, with a thesis on the ''

Monotonic function In mathematics, a monotonic function (or monotone function) is a function between ordered sets that preserves or reverses the given order. This concept first arose in calculus, and was later generalized to the more abstract setting of or ...

s of two

variables Variable may refer to: Computer science * Variable (computer science), a symbolic name associated with a value and whose associated value may be changed Mathematics * Variable (mathematics), a symbol that represents a quantity in a mathemat ...

'', written under the direction of

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 ...

. He was appointed Lecturer in 1955, Associate Professor in 1964, and became a Professor in 1966 (Emeritus in 1991). Marcus has contributed to the following areas: #Mathematical Analysis, Set Theory, Measure and Integration Theory, and Topology #Theoretical Computer Science #Linguistics #Poetics and Theory of Literature #Semiotics #Cultural Anthropology #History and Philosophy of Science #Education.

Publications by and on Marcus

Marcus published about 50 books, which have been translated into English,

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, Hungarian,

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

, and about 400 research articles in specialized journals in almost all European countries, in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, and

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

among others; he is cited by more than a thousand authors, including mathematicians, computer scientists, linguists, literary researchers, semioticians, anthropologists and philosophers. He is recognised as one of the initiators of mathematical linguistics and of mathematical poetics, and has been a member of the editorial board of tens of international scientific journals covering all his domains of interest. Marcus is featured in the 1999 book ''People and Ideas in Theoretical Computer Science''. and the 2015 ''The Human Face of Computing'' . A collection of his papers in English followed by some interviews and a brief autobiography was published in 2007 as ''Words and Languages Everywhere''. The book ''Meetings with Solomon Marcus'' (Spandugino Publishing House, Bucharest, Romania, 2010, 1500 pages), edited by Lavinia Spandonide and

Gheorghe Păun Gheorghe Păun (; born December 6, 1950, in Cicănești, Argeș County) is a computer scientist from Romania, prominent for work on membrane computing and the P system. Păun studied mathematics at the University of Bucharest, obtaining an MSc. in ...

for Marcus' 85th birthday, includes recollections by several hundred people from a large variety of scientific and cultural fields, and from 25 countries. It also contains a longer autobiography.

Death

Marcus died of cardiac infections at the in Bucharest after a short stay at in Bucharest.

Honours

National Order of Faithful Service The National Order of Faithful Service () is the second highest national order of Romania after the Order of the Star of Romania, and the third highest State decoration, with the Order of Michael the Brave being the first. Originally it was establ ...

in the rank of Grand Officer, 2011. *

Order of the Star of Romania The Order of the Star of Romania (Romanian: ''Ordinul Steaua României'') is Romania's highest civil Order and second highest State decoration after the Order of Michael the Brave. It is the oldest Order of Romania. It is awarded by the Preside ...

(

's highest civil Order) in the rank of Commander, 2015. *

Romanian Royal Family The Romanian royal family () constitutes the Romanian subbranch of the Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern (also known as the ''House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen''), and was the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Romania, a constitutional ...

: Knight of the Royal Decoration of Nihil Sine Deo.

Notes

References

Alexandra Bellow Alexandra Bellow (née Bagdasar; previously Ionescu Tulcea; August 30, 1935 – May 2, 2025) was a Romanian-American mathematician, who made contributions to the fields of ergodic theory, probability and analysis. Biography Bellow was born in ...

, Cristian S. Calude
Solomon Marcus (1925–2016)
''

Notices of the American Mathematical Society ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society'' is the membership journal of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), published monthly except for the combined June/July issue. The first volume was published in 1953. Each issue of the magazine ...

'' 64,10 (2017), 1216. * G. Păun, I. Petre, G. Rozenberg and A. Salomaa (eds.)
At the intersection of computer science with biology, chemistry and physics – In Memory of Solomon Marcus
''

Theoretical computer science Theoretical computer science is a subfield of computer science and mathematics that focuses on the Abstraction, abstract and mathematical foundations of computation. It is difficult to circumscribe the theoretical areas precisely. The Associati ...

'' 701 (2017), 1–234.
''Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality (GPSS)''

Publication list on his web page
at the "

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 ...

Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy The "Simion Stoilow" Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy is a research institute in Bucharest, Romania. It is affiliated with the Romanian Academy, and it is named after Simion Stoilow, one of its founders. History On December ...

''International Journal of Computers, Communications & Control''
Vol.I (2006), No.1, pp. 73–79, " Grigore C. Moisil: A Life Becoming a Myth", by Solomon Marcus, Editor's note about the author (p. 79)
Marcus' articles on semiotics at ''Potlatch''

External links

Solomon Marcus
at the University of Bucharest {{DEFAULTSORT:Marcus, Solomon 1925 births 2016 deaths 20th-century Romanian mathematicians Romanian semioticians Titular members of the Romanian Academy Academic staff of the University of Bucharest University of Bucharest alumni Romanian Jews People from Bacău Mathematical analysts Theoretical computer scientists Computational linguistics researchers Commanders of the Order of the Star of Romania Recipients of the National Order of Faithful Service