Draft:Constantin P. Popovici

Constantin P. Popovici
Born	(1930-02-26)26 February 1930 Izmail, Ismail County, Kingdom of Romania
Died	26 November 2019(2019-11-26) (aged 89) Bucharest, Romania
Alma mater	Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest University of Bucharest University of Cambridge
Known for	Number theory, algebraic theory of automata, founding of computer science education in Romania
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics, computer science
Workplaces	University of Bucharest Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiești Hyperion University of Bucharest
Doctoral advisor	Grigore Moisil

Constantin P. Popovici (26 February 1930 – 26 November 2019) was a Romanian mathematician and computer scientist, professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Bucharest. He earned his doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences with a thesis in number theory written under the supervision of Grigore Moisil, and was a member of Moisil's first team, which laid the foundations of computer science education in Romanian universities; he is regarded as one of the promoters of Romanian computer science. His work covers number theory, mathematical logic, the algebraic theory of automata, formal languages, recursive functions and computability.

Biography

Education

Popovici was born on 26 February 1930 in Izmail, Bessarabia. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest (today's Politehnica University of Bucharest), Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Electronics section, with an engineering degree in 1952, and from the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics.

He received his doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences with the number-theory thesis Unicitatea descompunerii în factori primi în inele de întregi ai lui Dirichlet ("Uniqueness of prime factorization in rings of Dirichlet integers"), written under the scientific supervision of academician Grigore Moisil, defended in March 1961 and confirmed in November 1962. In 1969 he obtained a diploma in computer science after completing a postgraduate course in computing science at the University of Cambridge, England.

Career

He began his career as a researcher in electronics at the Institute of Physics of the Romanian Academy (1951–1954) and as an assistant at the mathematics department of the Mining Institute in Bucharest (1953–1955). He was then a researcher in mathematics at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy (1955–1968) and an assistant at the Fundamentals of Radio Engineering department of the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest (1955–1956).

At the University of Bucharest he went through all the ranks of an academic career: lecturer at the Algebra department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics (1957–1962), associate professor at the Mathematical Logic department (1962–1973) and, from 1973 until his retirement, full professor at the Computer Science department of the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics, which later became the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. From 1972 to 1975 he was head of the Mathematical Logic department, later renamed "Computer Science and Applied Analysis" and then "Computer Science". He was a doctoral supervisor in computer science from 1971; fourteen doctoral theses were defended under his supervision.

After 1990 he also taught at other institutions: as professor at the mathematics and computer science departments of the Faculty of Letters and Sciences of the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiești (from 1991), at the University Pedagogical College of Spiru Haret University in Bucharest (1992–2003), at the mathematics and computer science department of Hyperion University in Bucharest (1992–2005), where he was also dean of the Faculty of Mathematics (1992–1995), at the University Pedagogical College for Primary School Teachers in Crevedia (from 2000) and in the preparatory year for Romanians abroad at the "Eudoxiu Hurmuzachi" Centre in Crevedia (from 2001).

He died on 26 November 2019 in Bucharest.

Role in the founding of Romanian computer science

In 1954, at the request of Constantin P. Popovici, Paul Constantinescu and Mariana Coroi-Nedelcu, Grigore Moisil gave an open course on the "Algebraic theory of automatic mechanisms" at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, out of which grew the Gr. C. Moisil Seminar, described as a "pioneering nucleus of computer science education and research". In 1959, when the faculty's "Computing Machines" section was established, Paul Constantinescu and Constantin P. Popovici became its first professors. Popovici was part of the team led by Moisil that laid the foundations of university-level computer science education, teaching the courses "Computing machines and programming theory" and "Algebraic theory of automatic mechanisms" in that section. He contributed to training specialists for the IBM 360/30 computer of the University of Bucharest Computing Centre and trained several generations of computer scientists.

Over his career he taught, among others, the courses "Arithmetic and number theory", "Modern algebra", "Theory of automatic mechanisms", "Computing machines and programming theory", "Recursive functions and Turing machines", "Logic and finite automata", "Theory of algorithms", "Design and implementation of programming languages" and "Foundations of computer science". Dragoș Vaida considered that Popovici "left us an important body of work in the creation of the discipline Foundations of Computer Science", and academician Solomon Marcus called him, in 2015, "a core member of the first Moisil team".

Together with Moisil, he is considered among the first mathematicians in Romania to turn towards computer science.

Research

He published 36 scientific papers, most of them in number theory (unique prime factorization in rings of quadratic integers and in the rings of Dirichlet and Gauss integers, irreducible polynomials modulo p, Heronian triangles, a generalization of the Möbius function, arithmetic equations of Dimitrie Pompeiu, odd perfect numbers), as well as in the algebraic theory of automatic mechanisms (contact and relay circuits, minimization of Boolean functions), formal languages, recursive functions, mathematical analysis and electricity. His number-theoretic research connected the theory of congruences of integers with the theory of Galois fields.

Several of his works were cited or continued in the literature: the paper Polinoame ireductibile modulo p (1959) is cited by Horst G. Zimmer in Computational Problems, Methods and Results in Algebraic Number Theory (Lecture Notes in Mathematics, no. 262) and by Lidl and Niederreiter in Finite Fields; the paper Sur une équation arithmétique de D. Pompeiu (1967) was continued by Péter Kiss in On one way of making automorphic numbers (Publicationes Mathematicae Debrecen, 1975); his formula from O generalizare a funcției lui Moebius (1963) received a new proof from Toma N. Stanciu (1967); and the monograph Łukasiewicz–Moisil Algebras (Boicescu, Filipoiu, Georgescu, Rudeanu) notes that the study of the sequential behaviour of circuits relies on the hypothesis "made explicit by C. P. Popovici" that the time axis can be divided into intervals small enough that the position of every device in the circuit remains unchanged. His book Teoria numerelor (1973) is cited by Bușneag, Boboc and Piciu in Elemente de aritmetică și teoria numerelor (1998).

He was secretary general of the Fourth International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, held in Bucharest in 1971, a member of the Centro Superiore di Logica e Scienze Comparate in Bologna, Italy (from 30 September 1972), a reviewer for Zentralblatt für Mathematik and a referee for more than 50 doctoral theses.

Teaching and editorial work

He published most of the courses he taught. Together with Leon Livovschi, Horia Georgescu, Nicolae Țăndăreanu, Sergiu Rudeanu and Luminița State he wrote the Bazele informaticii ("Foundations of Computer Science") series of university textbooks (1976–1991), and, as sole author, Aritmetica și teoria numerelor (1963), Calculatoare cu program și teoria programării (1972), Teoria numerelor (1973) and Curs de teoria algoritmilor. Funcții recursive și mașini Turing (1976).

For secondary education he wrote, together with M. Lovin and P. Preoteasa, three computer science textbooks for the special computer science classes of Romanian high schools (1972–1974), as well as the mathematics textbooks for the 5th grade (with I. G. Borca and I. C. Ligor, 1978, reprinted between 1979 and 1996) and the 6th grade (with I. C. Ligor, 1979, reprinted between 1980 and 1997). He gave continuing-education courses for engineers (mathematical foundations of automatic systems, Boolean algebras in automation, programming theory) and for high-school teachers, and chaired numerous teacher certification examinations.

He translated books on computer science and geometry and problem collections from Russian and French, including Jacques Arsac's Informatica (1973), Geometrie pentru clasele VI–VIII by A. N. Kolmogorov et al. (1979) and Probleme neelementare tratate elementar by A. M. Yaglom and I. M. Yaglom (1983). He also wrote popular-science articles in Gazeta Matematică and the magazine Progresele științei on the life and work of George Boole, number theory, logic diagrams, algorithms and programs, and on Grigore Moisil.

Honours

• "Man of the Year" 1995, awarded by the American Biographical Institute (USA)
• Listed in Who's Who in Science and Engineering 2006–2007, 9th edition (Marquis Who's Who)
• Diploma of merit from Hyperion University of Bucharest (2001)
• Diploma of excellence from the Petroleum-Gas University of Ploiești (2002)
• "Top 100 Scientists 2011" diploma of the International Biographical Centre, Cambridge

On 22 May 2015, the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Bucharest held an anniversary symposium marking the professor's 85th birthday.

Selected works

Books and textbooks

• Aritmetica și teoria numerelor [Arithmetic and number theory], Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, Bucharest, 1963 (2nd revised edition, 1970)
• Calculatoare cu program și teoria programării [Stored-program computers and programming theory], Editura Științifică, Bucharest, 1972
• Informatica [Computer science], textbooks for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of high school, special computer science classes, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, Bucharest, 1972–1974 (with M. Lovin and P. Preoteasa)
• Teoria numerelor [Number theory], Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, Bucharest, 1973
• Curs de Bazele informaticii [Course on the foundations of computer science], 3 volumes, University of Bucharest, 1976–1980 (with Leon Livovschi and Nicolae Țăndăreanu)
• Curs de teoria algoritmilor. Funcții recursive și mașini Turing [Course on the theory of algorithms. Recursive functions and Turing machines], University of Bucharest, 1976
• Matematica, mathematics textbooks for the 5th grade (with I. G. Borca and I. C. Ligor, 1978) and the 6th grade (with I. C. Ligor, 1979), Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, Bucharest, reprinted until 1996–1997
• Bazele informaticii [Foundations of computer science], Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, Bucharest, 1981 (with Leon Livovschi, Horia Georgescu and Nicolae Țăndăreanu)
• Bazele informaticii, vol. I (with Horia Georgescu and Luminița State, 1990) and vol. II (with Sergiu Rudeanu and Horia Georgescu, 1991), University of Bucharest

Papers

• "Asupra unicității descompunerii în factori primi în inelul întregilor lui Gauss", Buletin Științific, Secțiunea de Științe Matematice și Fizice, vol. VII, no. 3 (1955), pp. 517–528
• "Analiza și sinteza schemelor cu comandă directă cu ajutorul imaginarelor lui Galois", Buletin Științific, Secțiunea de Științe Matematice și Fizice, vol. VIII, no. 3 (1956), pp. 455–467 (with Grigore C. Moisil)
• "Asupra unicității descompunerii în factori primi în inele de întregi pătratici", Bulletin Mathématique de la Société des Sciences Mathématiques et Physiques de la R.P.R., vol. 1 (49), no. 1 (1957), pp. 99–120
• "Asupra condiției de stabilizare a procesului pozițiilor contactelor de relee sub comandă dată", Revue de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées, vol. II (1957), pp. 509–534
• "Polinoame ireductibile modulo p", Revue de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées, vol. IV, no. 3 (1959), pp. 369–379
• "Forma conjunctivă minimală a funcțiilor booleene", Bulletin Mathématique de la Société des Sciences Mathématiques et Physiques de la R.P.R., vol. 4 (52), no. 1–2 (1961), pp. 107–119
• "Triunghiuri heronice", Revue de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées, vol. VII, no. 3 (1962), pp. 439–457
• "O generalizare a funcției lui Moebius", Studii și Cercetări Matematice, vol. XIV, no. 3 (1963), pp. 493–499
• "Sur une équation arithmétique de D. Pompeiu", Bulletin Mathématique de la Société des Sciences Mathématiques de la R.S.R., vol. 11 (59), no. 3 (1967), pp. 91–97
• "Une généralisation d'une équation arithmétique de D. Pompeiu", Bulletin Mathématique de la Société des Sciences Mathématiques de la R.S.R., vol. 13 (61), no. 1 (1969), pp. 73–84
• "A direct method of minimisation of Boolean functions in disjunctive and conjunctive forms", Revue Roumaine des Sciences Sociales, série de Philosophie et Logique, vol. 16, no. 3 (1972), pp. 265–274
• "An unitary approach of some iterative methods in the theory of formal languages", Analele Universității București, seria Matematică-Informatică, vols. XLII–XLIII (1993–1994), pp. 76–79 (with H. Georgescu)
• "On perfect odd numbers", Analele Universității București, seria Matematică, vol. XLVII, no. 2 (1998), pp. 193–200

Translations

• Jacques Arsac, Informatica, Editura Enciclopedică Română, Bucharest, 1973 (from French)
• A. N. Kolmogorov, A. F. Semenovich, F. F. Nagibin, R. S. Cherkasov, V. A. Gusev, Geometrie pentru clasele VI–VIII, Editura Didactică și Pedagogică, Bucharest, 1979 (from Russian)
• A. M. Yaglom, I. M. Yaglom, Probleme neelementare tratate elementar, Editura Tehnică, Bucharest, 1983 (from Russian)

External links

• Memorial website dedicated to Prof. Constantin P. Popovici (in Romanian)
• Constantin Popovici și începuturile informaticii în România – video recording (YouTube) (in Romanian)

This page will be placed in the following categories if it is moved to the article namespace.

Categories:

• 1930 births
• 2019 deaths
• 20th-century Romanian mathematicians
• 21st-century Romanian mathematicians
• Number theorists
• Romanian logicians
• Romanian computer scientists
• Academic staff of the University of Bucharest
• University of Bucharest alumni
• Politehnica University of Bucharest alumni
• Romanian textbook writers
• Mathematics educators
• Russian–Romanian translators
• French–Romanian translators
• People from Izmail