Spiru Haret
| Spiru Haret | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
15 February 1851 Iaşi, Moldavia |
| Died | 17 December 1912 (aged 61) Bucharest, Romania |
Spiru C. Haret (Romanian pronunciation: [ˈspiru haˈret]; 15 February 1851 – 17 December 1912) was a Romanian-Armenian mathematician, astronomer and politician. He made a fundamental contribution to the n-body problem in celestial mechanics by proving that using a third degree approximation for the disturbing forces implies instability of the major axes of the orbits, and by introducing the concept of secular perturbations in relation to this.
As a politician, during his three terms as Minister of Education, Haret ran deep reforms, building the modern Romanian education system. He was made a full member of the Romanian Academy in 1892.
He also founded the Astronomical observatory in Bucharest, appointing Nicolae Coculescu as its first director. The crater Haret on the Moon is named after him.
Haret was born in Iaşi, Moldavia, to an old Armenian family, and showed an early talent for mathematics, publishing two textbooks (one in algebra and one in trigonometry) when he was still a high school student. In 1869 he entered the University of Bucharest, where he studied physics and mathematics. In 1870, while a student in his second term, he became teacher of mathematics at Nifon Seminary in Bucharest, but quit the following year in order to continue his studies. In 1874, at age 23, he graduated with a degree in physics and mathematics.
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