Ion I. Agârbiceanu

Ion I. Agârbiceanu (January 6, 1907, Bucium - March 9, 1971, Cluj) was a Romanian physicist, son of novelist Ion Agârbiceanu.


He graduated the Electrotechnical Institute in Bucharest (1925-1929), then the Faculty of Sciences in Paris, where he received his doctorate (1934), prepared under the leadership of A. Cotton. His doctoral thesis, Recherche sur le spectre de fluorescence et d'absorption des vapeurs de Iodine became a reference work in the field.

In 1948 Ion I. Agârbiceanu became professor at the Petroleum and Gas Institute in Bucharest. Since 1951 he was professor at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Bucharest, then he was Head of Department of Physics at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute (1955-1971). He was Romania's representative to the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and the European Group for Atomic Spectroscopy. On 21 March 1963, he was elected member of the Romanian Academy.

In 1956, Prof. Dr. Ion I. Agârbiceanu organized at the Institute of Atomic Physics in Bucharest, the "Optical Methods in Nuclear Physics" Laboratory, with outstanding results in the research on atomic hyperfine and isotopic structures, magneto-optical resonance, and thin dielectric layers.

The Agârbiceanu Laser (image from Wikipedia)

Under his leadership was realized in 1962 the first gas (helium-neon) laser with infrared radiation, after his original design. By focusing the laser beam produced by monochromatic light, there are obtained enormous radiation densities on very small surfaces.

Ştefan Lupaşcu

Ştefan Lupaşcu (Stéphane Lupasco, 1900–1988) was a Romanian philosopher who developed Non-Aristotelian logic.


Stéphane Lupasco was born in Bucharest on 11 August 1900. His family belonged to the old Moldavian aristocracy. His father was a lawyer and politician, but it was his mother, a pianist and student of César Franck, who established the family in Paris in 1916. After high school at the Lycée Buffon, he studied philosophy, biology and physics at the Sorbonne and, briefly, law. He participated fully in the artistic and intellectual life of Paris in the 20’s and 30’s and defended his State Doctoral Thesis in 1935.

In 1946, he was named Research Assistant at the French National Science Research Center, a post he was obliged to leave ten years later because of the inability of the Center to decide in which faculty his work belonged! The next ten or fifteen years were those of greatest acceptance of his work by the public and other thinkers, but unfortunately not by main-stream logicians and philosophers. His Trois Matières, published in 1960 was a bestseller, and people began calling Lupasco the Descartes, the Leibniz, the Hegel of the 20th Century, a new Claude Bernard, a new Bergson, etc. He continued to publish books in the 70’s and 80’s, the last being L’Homme et ses Trois Ethiques in 1986, two years before his death on October 7, 1988 in Paris. An Award of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984 was among the few honors that came to Lupasco during his lifetime. Lupasco was one of the founding members of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (Centre International de Recherches et Etudes Transdisciplinaires (CIRET)), founded in Paris in 1987 by Basarab Nicolescu, Edgar Morin, René Berger, Michel Random and other key figures of the French intelligentsia. As Nicolescu has recalled, Lupasco was deeply affected by the stubborn resistance of the academic community to honest debate and discussion of his new principles and postulates, and it is with an understandable bitterness that Lupasco saw in this resistance another example of the operation of his principles.


Lupasco's work is a complex philosophical system focused on the dynamic logic of contradiction. It is about a theoretical daresome creation meant to offer a solution to the epistemological contemporary crises, towards a new and original approach of the philosophy as a science. Further on Stefan Lupascu aims even an essential change of the human capacity to understand the reality. Having the new logic as a basis, without being classical, he places the whole explanation about the surrounding environment in other terms. Stimulated by Einstein's works and quantum theory, Lupasco founded a new logic, questioning the tertium non datur principle of classical logic. He introduced a third state, going beyond the duality principle, the T-state. The T-state is neither 'actual', nor 'potential' (categories replacing in Lupasco's system the 'true' or 'false' values of standard bivalent logic), but a resolution of the two contradictory elements at a higher level of reality or complexity. Lupasco generalized his logic to physics and epistemology and above all to a new theory of consciousness.

Main source of informations: Wikipedia.

Orzea Gorges

Located north of Scropoasa Lake in Bucegi Mountains, Cheile Orzei (Orzea Gorges) are among the tightest, beautiful and spectacular gorges in the Ialomița Valley and even in Romania. The gorges are over 1.5 km long, dug into the limestone walls. In 1970, to protect this valuable space, was created the Orzea Gorges Nature Reserve Complex.


Mixed nature reserves Orzea-Zănoaga and Zănoaga-Lucăcilă includes Zănoaga karst systeme: Big Zănoaga Gorges, Little Zănoaga Gorges, Orzea Gorges - all nature monuments, forests of spruce (Pices abies), a thermophilic vegetation consisting of rare Southern-European, Southern-Mediterranean and Balkanic floristic elements: mountain rye (Secale montanum), iris (Iris dacica), Sorbus cretica, Carduus candicanus, Athamantha hungarica, Phleum montanum, Lonicera caerulea, Astragalus depressus, and many others.


Orzea Gorges are guarded by stone walls of 100-300 m high, between Lespezi Mountain and Orza–Brânduşi Mountain. Here, Ialomița Valley is very narrow and provides an exciting spectacle of the falls on the stones. At the end of the gorges are the Scropoasa lake and dam.


Images from here, here, and here.

The four musketeers

The Women Sword Team of Romania won the 2010 World Championship in Paris, France. In the female sword tournament, the team of Romania defeated Ukraine (45-35) in the eights, France (45-40) in the quarterfinals, and South Korea (45-31) in the semifinals. The bronze medal was won by South Korea, which defeated China (45-37), and Romania won a dramatic final against Germany (35-26).


Ana Maria Brânză, Simona Alexandru, Anca Măroiu and Loredana Iordăchioiu are the new World Champions! All for one...

Foto: Agerpress

Aiudului Gorges

The Switzerland of the East, the name given to the Apuseni and Sebeş Mountains, are without any doubt, and will remain, the main touristic destinations of Alba County. One who has visited the county’s beauties will certainly come back again and bring his friends as well.


The shallow water limestone from the Trascău Mountains crop out in two parallel alignments with a generally N-S orientation: Tureni-Buru-Rimetea-Cheile Aiudului alignment in the east, and the Lunca Arieşului-Râmeţi (Bedeleu ridge) in the west. Cheile Aiudului (Aiudului Gorges or Vălișoarei Gorges or Poienii Gorges) are located in eastern Trăscau Mountains, Alba County, and are carved in Mesozoic (Jurassic) limestone. Aiudului Gorges are crossed by the county road DJ107, connecting the Mureş Valley (Aiud) and the Arieş Valley (Buru village). The gorges are situated at a distance of about 15 km from Aiud, 15 km from Buru 15 km, 35 km from Turda and 65 km from Cluj-Napoca.


Aiudului Gorges were declared as geo-morphological and botanical nature reserve (20 ha - strict protection, 100 ha - nature reserve and a buffer zone of protection). The reserve is located in the southern part of the Rimetea Depression, with a maximum altitude of 779 m and a minimum of 425 m. On the slopes of the mountain can be found several rare, protected species. The gorges presents shelf slope facies associations and open shelf edge facies associations, with bio-constructions and bio-clastic shoals.


On the right of the gorges, there is a rock called The Fortress, where some 13th century documents attested the Zedecheu Fortress, unidentified until now in site. The area of the gorges is a paradise for trekkers, hikers or paragliders.

Images from here and here.

The Năsal cheese

The traditional Romanian products obtain identity and recognition by European legislation. These products can have an immeasurable value for the cultural heritage of the Romanian people and represents also a highly economic potential.

The Năsal cheese is the only sort of Romanian cheese with mould, having also a specific technology. It’s identity is due to it’s specific qualities given by the ripening in the natural den from Ţaga, Cluj County. In this unique location the temperature and humidity of the air are constant all year long favoring also in this way the obtainment of a quality product. In this way Brevibacterium linens “contaminates” the cheese and transforms it into a highly appreciated specialty by the consumers. The conditions in the den, and the existence of bacteria, are impossible to reproduce in any other place, with the result of uniqueness of this cheese.


It is said that the area was owned by a rich and cruel count. One day, some brave farmers have ignored the commandments of the noble and took some pieces of his cheese, for their children. They hid the cheese in the den near the Năsal village, and did not rushed to go and take it. Weeks passed, and one day a villager went into the cave, convinced he will find the cheese rotten. He had a big surprise when he found it in good condition. The cheese changed its color to a reddish yellow, but the taste was very good, despite the smell. Finally, the count found out and punished the peasants. However, he began himself to keep in the cave cheese pieces, with whom he served all his noble guests, proud of its exquisite taste.

The cheese is hard, reddish at exterior and it has a soft, creamy consistency. It is recommended to be served with a dry red wine. You can use slices of red onion, red grapes, nuts or integral crackers. Today, the Năsal cheese is produced by Napolact, a major dairy producer from Cluj and sold in a wooden box.

RIP, Adrian Păunescu


Adrian Păunescu (b. July 20, 1943, Copăceni, Bălți County, today in Moldova Republic - d. November 5, 2010, Bucharest)

A literary prize

For her first novel, "Terre des affranchis" which was published at Gaia Publishing House last year, the writer Liliana Lazăr was awarded the Prix des cinq continents. The prestigious prize, awarded by the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), rewards since 2001 Francophone writers. The Romanian Cultural Institute in Paris and the OIF will promote internationally the novel of Liliana Lazăr.


Liliana Lazăr received also for her novel the Prix La Première in Belgium. The action of the book takes place in Romania, in 1955, and the hero is Victor Luca from Slobozia. Because he committed a crime, he must live secretly, but the need for redemption leads him to the point that it will accept a secret mission: to be a clerk and to save the holy writings, banned during the communist regime. The jury considered the novel as "a cruel story, politics and metaphysics, where, in the struggle between good and evil and in face of brutality, there is no salvation".