Șerban Țițeica

Șerban Țițeica around 1980

Șerban Țițeica (born March 27, 1908 in Bucharest , † May 28, 1985 ibid) was a Romanian physicist . He is one of the founders of theoretical physics in Romania .

Life

Șerban Țițeica, the third child of mathematician Gheorghe Țițeica and a Swiss musician, attended the Mihai Viteazul grammar school in Bucharest. From 1926 to 1929 he studied physics , chemistry and mathematics at the natural science faculty of the University of Bucharest . At the same time he attended the Bucharest Conservatory and heard the composer Alfonso Castaldi lectures on music theory , solfège , harmony and counterpoint .

After completing his military service, he continued his studies in 1930 at the suggestion of Enrico Fermi at the University of Leipzig . There he learned theoretical physics and geophysics and received his doctorate in 1935 under Werner Heisenberg . His dissertation on the change in resistance of metals in a magnetic field is published in the Annalen der Physik . As a borderline case, it describes the previously known quadratic dependence of the resistance on the field strength when this is low, and at the same time explains the linear dependence at high field strengths observed experimentally by Pjotr ​​Kapiza in 1928 .

In 1935 he returned to Romania and until 1941 was an analysis assistant at the Bucharest Polytechnic . In the meantime he dealt with corpuscular rays and published works on organic chemistry with Costin Nenițescu . From 1941 to 1948 he was Professor of Structure of Matter at the University of Iași , then Professor at the University of Bucharest. There he taught classical mechanics , electrodynamics , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics and statistical physics .

From 1949 to 1956 he was head of the department for theoretical physics of the Institute of Physics of the Romanian Academy , from 1956 to 1971 a member of the management of the Institute of Atomic Physics , from its establishment 1956 to 1981 representative of Romania in the scientific council of the United Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna , Deputy Scientific Director from 1962 to 1964 and member of the Council of the European Physical Society from 1970 to 1975 . The Romanian Academy elected him a full member in 1955 and its deputy chairman in 1963, which he remained until his death. In addition, he was a foreign member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1966 and an external member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences from 1967 . In 1968 he received the Om de știință emerit award .

Țițeica wrote three textbooks on statistical mechanics , thermodynamics and quantum mechanics. A fourth on statistical physics and quantum theory appeared posthumously. From 1956 until his death he was the editor of the scientific journals Studii și cercetări de fizica and Revue roumaine de physique . In 1951 he married a doctor. The marriage resulted in two daughters, the older one became a violinist and the younger a physicist. He is buried in the Șerban Vodă cemetery in Bucharest .

Fonts

• About the change in resistance of metals in a magnetic field. In: Annals of Physics. Vol. 414, 1935, ISSN  0003-3804 , pp. 129-161.
• Elements de mecanică statistică. Editura Tehnică, Bucureşti 1956.
• Termodinamica. Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucureşti 1982.
• Mecanica cuantică. Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucureşti 1984.
• Curs de fizică statistică și teoria cuantelor. Editura ALL, București 2000, ISBN 973-684-319-X .

literature

• Analele Academiei Republicii Socialiste România. Jg. 119, 1985, ZDB -ID 339807-9 , pp. 452-461.
• Analele Universității Bucureşti - Fizică. Vol. 34, 1985, ISSN  0254-8895 , pp. 101-104.
• Bol'šaja sovetskaja ėnciklopedija . 3. Edition. Vol. 28, Moskva 1978, Col. 1792.
• Dorina N. Rusu: Membrii Academiei Române 1866-2003. Dicționary. 3. Edition. Editura Enciclopedică, București 2003, ISBN 973-27-1051-9 , p. 847.
• Armin Uhlmann: G. Șerban Țițeica. In: Yearbook - Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig. 1985-1986, ISSN  0080-5262 , p. 227.
• Șerban Țițeica: articole științifice , author Tudor A. Marian, Editura Academiei Române, București, 2008, ISBN 978-973-27-1680-9 .