Grigore Brişcu

Grigore Brişcu (1884, Bârlad - 1965, Bucharest) was a great Romanian engineer and inventor.

Having a real inclined towards engineering, he joined in 1903 the National School of Bridges and Roads in Bucharest and followed also some courses in Paris. At the same time he joined the Faculty of Law in Iaşi, where he earned a degree in legal sciences.

He published in "Car Magazine" no. 48 of December 15, 1909, p. 8 and no. 53 of 1910, p. 98 the study titled "Helicopters", which showed that the helicopters are "practical, economical, safe operation and will be used widely by the general public". He was the first engineer who in 1909 began experimenting with the cyclic variation of rotor blade pitch in order to ensure horizontal flight and stability and piloting helicopters. Even today, the automatic deviation device is still one of the most important helicopter systems.

Grigore Brişcu stands as one of the most important theorists of mechanical flight. He made an helicopter model he named "air-carriage" which had all the features of a helicopter-like flying-machine: horizontal, vertical and lateral movement and fixed-point landing. It was equipped with two coaxial propellers rotating in contrary directions, whose angle of incidence of the blades may vary during rotation, to gain ascension force and propulsion. The solution was experimented by French aviator Paul Cornu (1881-1963), who built a prototype with an Antoinett engine. The Brişcu rotary engine was patented by the Romanian Office for Inventions (patent no. 2323/2046 of 1912).

Grigore Brişcu's contributions to the study and development of mechanical flight earned him a place among the greatest Romanian inventors of the 20th century.

The first woman-engineer in Europe

Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu (November 10, 1887 - November 25, 1973), was the first woman engineer in Europe. Some say that she was the first woman engineer in the world

Elisa Leonida attended primary school in Galaţi and the high school at "Central School for Girls" in Bucharest, obtaining a baccalaureate at "Michael the Brave" high school. Rejected because of prejudice of the School of Bridges and Roads in Bucharest, she entered in 1909 at the Royal Technical Academy in Berlin, Charlottemburg, which she graduated in 1912, becoming the first woman engineer in Europe.

When registering, the Dean tried to persuade to stop bringing the argument of three K: Kirche, Kinder, Küche (church, children, cooking) as essential for women's profile. The press reported the event as a stunt: "A compatriot of ours, Miss Elisa Leonida, instead of studying Letters or Medicine, or worse, the Law, studied engineering at Charlottemburg. The future of women in engineering is great, Miss Elisa Leonida passed with great success last final exam, obtaining the diploma of engineer (newspaper "Minerva", 1912).

After returning to Romania, she was employed as an assistant at the Institute of Geology. Elisa participate in WWI as a member of the Red Cross, helping and leading many hospitals, for which was awarded. In 1918 she married on the front-line with chemist Constantin Zamfirescu, brother of the writer Duiliu Zamfirescu. After the war she resumed work at the Institute, leading several geological analysis laboratories. She participated in major field studies, in particular the identification and analysis of new resources of coal, shale, natural gas, chromium, bauxite and copper, and wrote monographs on these studies. Elisa also taught physics and chemistry.

She retired in 1963, aged 75. Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu was the first woman member of A.G.I.R. (General Association of Romanian Engineers) and of International Association of University Women; since 1993 a street in District 1 of Bucharest bears his name.

Rodrig Goliescu

Rodrig Goliescu (1882–1942) was a Romanian inventor, engineer, and Lieutenant, who built the Avioplan, the first airplane with a tubular fuselage. The model, with a length of 1.2 m was successfully tested in 1909, having a take off angle of 30 degrees. The originality of this aircraft was the shape of the fuselage, designed for minimum drag and acting as a tube fan, similar to the way the modern vertical take off aircraft and helicopters are designed.

This shape reduced drag and increased the efficiency of the propeller. Helped by the Minister of Education, Spiru Haret, who also helped Aurel Vlaicu, in 1909 he went to France to acquire an engine for his aircraft. In Paris he sent a survey "Laws of air dynamics" to the French Academy, study that was published in "La France automobile et aérienne" magazine, on 15 May 1909. Goliescu patented his invention in France (patent no. 402329). In the same year he learned to fly and he built an updated version of his aircraft, this time in full size. The aircraft had a half cylinder fuselage, but still the air from the propeller flowed through as in the first model. He flies with his aircraft for the first time, in November 1909, on Juvisy airfield, near Paris, and he reaches an altitude of about 50 m. It was for the first time to fly an aircraft with a tubed propeller. Between 1932 and 1936 he flight tested his Aviocoleopter, the first aircraft to have a toroidal wing.

After his flights, only in 1932, the Italian engineer Luigi Stipa will build an aircraft with a "barrel fuselage" under the name of Stipa-Caproni but the concept will reach its dedication after the Second World War, being successfully implemented in helicopters like SA-365 Dauphin, RAH-66 Comanche or the new X-35 fighter.

Sources: Wikipedia, Early Aviators.

Dumitru Văsescu

Dumitru Văsescu (1859 - 1909) was a Romanian engineer, professor and inventor.

Born in Iaşi in 1859, Dumitru Văsescu followed school and high school courses in his hometown. Animated by the desire to study engineering, he went to Paris, where he studied at the "École Centrale". In Paris young Văsescu installed a small workshop on Michelet Street, where he tried to build a machine capable of traveling on land or by rail, by its own means. After great efforts, managed to achieve in 1880 a steam car, which became after the tests one of the curiosities of Paris.

Steam car built by Dumitru Văsescu was composed of a multi-tubular boiler heated with coal, with connecting pipes, pressure valves and pressure gauges so disposed, that they can be handled easily. Very characteristic for this car were the rear wheels made of metal alloy with steel spokes and solid rubber tires. Front wheels were smaller and were made of metal, with tires. Dumitru Văsescu's car was fitted with two independent brake systems. Water tank was located under the driver's seat and steering wheel was on the right side of the car.

After graduating in Paris, Dumitru Văsescu returned in Romania in 1906, bringing with him his steam car, which circulated in Bucharest. The car was exhibited at the School of Bridges and Roads, where D. Văsescu teaches as professor. Dumitru Văsescu died on October 29, 1909, in Bucharest.

Dumitru Daponte and the 3D cinema

Dumitru Daponte (1894-1956) was a Romanian engineer, who invented in 1924 the 3D cinema.

After World War I began the boom of film industry. It was the silent film era, black and white, interrupted every 10 minutes to change the film coil. The dialogues were designed separately, on a black background and some film scenes were interrupted to provide the necessary explanation for the action understanding. However, the theaters were full and it was obvious that the new industry had a golden future.

One of the problems that Dumitru Daponte tried to solve is related to playback images in relief (the classic projection has only width and height, not depth, making the screen to be viewed as a sequence of shots). Techniques used in this way were different: the use of glasses with colored lenses, the projection of images on a curved screen etc.

Before Daponte, another Romanian had made a similar attempt: N. Iliescu Brînceni developed a kind of binoculars, which each spectator had to hold to eyes to see on a screen two distinct sets of images superposed to obtain the sensation of relief.

Dumitru Daponte began to work on his invention in 1916, doing research and experimentation in Italy and England, countries where the film enjoyed a great interest. He then made a device for obtaining a stereoscopic effect, based on the idea that the relief conditions must be created since the time of registration of the film. Daponte built a camera with two objectives (the ones by then had one), at approximately 6 cm distance from each other, trying to get the relief effect by projecting simultaneously each pair of captured images. The engineer based his invention by the fact that man sees with two eyes and the perception of relief is due to this double simultaneous reception of the image. His apparatus also contained a device allowing the adjustment of the distance between the two objectives. The two films thus obtained were then entered into a special recording device, such as the two images to be implemented on a single film. His invention was patented in France (Patent no. 592963) and England (Patent no. 222173).

Daponte's invention, introduced in 1924, enjoyed great interest and represented a step forward in addressing this crucial issue for the future of film industry.

Anghel Saligny

Anghel Saligny (April 19, 1854, Şerbăneşti – June 17, 1925, Bucharest) was a great Romanian engineer, forerunner of metal and concrete construction science.

His father, Alfred Saligny, an educator, was a French immigrant to Romania. He started his studies at the boarding school founded by his father in Focşani, then went on to high school, initially also in Focşani and then in Potsdam, Germany. He pursued astronomy at the University in Berlin - as a student of Hermann von Helmholtz, and engineering studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Charlottenburg (1870-1874), and then contributed to the construction of railways in Saxony (Cottbus-Frankfurt). He was a founding member of the Bucharest Polytechnic Society (the precursor to today's Bucharest Polytechnic Institute) - and its president between 1895-1897 and 1910-1911 - and was even appointed a Minister of Public Works. In 1892, he was elected a member of the Romanian Academy, and he served as its president between 1907 and 1910. Anghel Saligny's brother Alfons Oscar Saligny (1853–1903) was a chemist and educator who was also elected a member of the Romanian Academy.

He drew the plans for the Adjud–Târgu Ocna, which included the first mixed-use (railway and highway) bridges in Romania (1881–1882). He was also involved in the construction of numerous other metallic bridges, such as the one at Cosmeşti over the Siret River, which measured 430 m in length. Between 1884 and 1889, Saligny planned and built the first silos in the world made of reinforced concrete, which are preserved today in Constanţa, Brăila and Galaţi. In the port of Constanţa, he created a special pool to allow oil export and two silos for grain export.

Anghel Saligny's most important work was the King Carol I Bridge over the Danube at Cernavodă. Although a public offer had been held by the Romanian government for the erection of a bridge in that location, all projects were found to be subpar and then rejected. Based on his previous experience, Saligny was then selected and given the daunting (at the time) task to draw up the plans for the new structure. Construction work for the bridge started November 26, 1895, in the presence of King Carol I of Romania. The bridge has five openings, with four being 140 m wide, and the central one spanning 190 m. To allow ships to pass under the bridge, it was raised 30 m above the water. The endurance test was performed on the official opening day, when a convoy of locomotives drove on it at 85 km/h. The bridge at Cernavodă measures 4.088 m in length, with 1,662 m over the Danube, and 920 m over the Borcea arm of Danube. At the time, it was the longest bridge in Europe, and the third longest bridge in the world. The structure was famous for its era, competing with Gustave Eiffel's engineering works in France — the Garabit viaduct and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was later renamed Anghel Saligny Bridge, and was not used since 1987, after the construction of a new bridge.

After Wikipedia.

The case of Ion Basgan

Ion Basgan (June 24, 1902, Focşani - December 15, 1980, Bucharest) was a Romanian engineer and inventor, famous for the discovery of the effect that bears his name.


He obtained the high school diploma in 1920 in Iaşi. With a scholarship, under contract with the oil company "Romanian Star", Basgan followed between 1920-1925 the Upper Austria School of Mining and Metallurgy in Leoben, and after graduation he worked on construction sites of the "Astra Română" Oil Company, becoming in 1930 the director of the sites in Moldova. In 1933 he obtained a Ph.D. at Montanistische Hochschule Leoben in Austria with the thesis entitled "Die Arbeitsweise und Form des Rotary Meissels", published in 1934 at Hans Urban Publisher in Vienna with a preface written by the famous engineer and inventor Gogu Constantinescu. The same year, he followed the political economy courses of the University of London and began his teaching career as an honorary professor at the Department of Petroleum Economics at the Academy of Commercial and Industrial Advanced Studies. Between 1944 and 1949 he was director of the company "Petrolifera" Wallachia, and between 1949 and 1954 he worked at the Ministry of Agriculture, to design and execute the boreholes for water supply of cities.


The research of Ion Basgan in oil drilling with sonicity combined with the "Basgan effect" started in 1932. Essentially, he developed a system for drilling for oil which used principles of sonics to drill wells cheaper, faster, and better. The theory was that using percussive as well as rotary drilling, and a counter-weight, oil wells could be drilled extremely quickly and be perfectly straight down as well. This invention also allowed for drilling up to and exceeding 15km of depth. His most important patents are: "Method for improving the efficiency of advanced rotary drilling, by rotation percussion and the depreciation of hydro mechanic pressure", patented in Romania (Patent no. 22789/1934) and then in the U.S., "Rotary Well Drilling Apparatus", patented in U.S. (Patent no. 2103137/1937) and refined later in Romania, "Rotary Hammer Drilling" (Patent no. 37743/1945). These inventions have revolutionized the oil drilling techniques, helping US oil drillers to reduce production costs by over 30 per cent. In 1967, Basgan patented in France, USA, Portugal and United Arab Emirates the invention "Rotary and percussive drilling system with sonic frequency, limiting the effect of Archimedes pressure, and the corresponding plant and equipment", which permitted the exceeding of the critical barrier of 8000 m depth. Ion Basgan published over 60 works, consisting of articles, topics discussed at conferences and treatises on drilling equipment.


Initially, these inventions were used in Romania. Since 1937, they were applied in the U.S. by all major oil companies. During the period of the Second World War, the inventions of the Romanian engineer were seized and freed only in 1965, by the Order 838/13.10.1965 of the Ministry of Justice of the United States. Basgan died without ever receiving any money for his invention. He wanted to use the fees to help young Romanian inventors, regardless of their field of activity. Over the past few years however, Basgan's sons has been fighting in court for the reparation of royalties from 200 US oil companies, with royalties totaling $8,634,836,458.00, to fulfill his father’s dream.

Gheorghe Botezatu

Gheorghe Botezatu, known as Dr. Georges A. de Bothezat (1893, Jassy, Romania - February 2, 1949, Dayton, USA), Romanian inventor, engineer and mathematician.


Gheorghe Botezatu was born in Iaşi, Romania 1883 or 1882. He studied in Iaşi, Petrograd and Sorbonne, Paris, and obtained here a PhD (Étude de la stabilité de l'aéroplane - 1911), first of its kind. He was an aeronautical engineer and mathematician, professor of the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute in the beginning of the WWI, worked for DEKA in Petrograd between 1916 and 1917 and next he stayed in Iaşi at the turn of 1918. In 1918 Botezatu wrote the letter and report "General Theory of the Screw" (air-screw i.e. propeller of an aircraft), after he wrote off to Subcommittee on Buildings, Laboratories and Equipments in Feb. 1919 and the US Army Air Corps awarded a contract in January 1921 to Dr. George de Bothezat and Ivan Jerome to develop a vertical flight machine.


The 1678 kg "X"-shaped structure supported a 8.1m diameter six-blade rotor at each end of the 9m arms. At the ends of the lateral arms, two small propellers with variable pitch were used for thrusting and yaw control. A small lifting rotor was also mounted above the 180HP Le Rhone radial engine (which it also cooled) at the junction of the frames, but was later removed as unnecessary. Each rotor had individual collective pitch control to produce differential thrust through vehicle inclination for translation. The aircraft weighed 1700 kg at take-off and made its first flight in October 1922. The engine was soon upgraded to a 220HP Bentley BR-2 rotary. About 100 flights were made by the end of 1923 at what would eventually be known as Wright Field near Dayton, Ohio, including one with three "passengers" hanging onto the airframe. Although the contract called for a 100m hover, the highest it ever reached was about 5m. After expending $200,000, de Bothezat demonstrated that his vehicle could be quite stable and that the practical helicopter was theoretically possible.


He studied Earth-Moon-Earth routes and made a large number of calculations on the likely trajectory variations. Subsequently, calculations of Botezatu were consulted in preparing the U.S. Apollo Space Research Program.

In 1936 Gheorghe Botezatu published a revolutionary book, Back to Newton: A Challenge to Einsteins Theory of Relativity - Critical Discussion of The Three Great Cognitive Issues: Infinity, Absolute Time, Absolute Motion, Including the Rigorous Proof of the Fallacy of Einstein's Theories of Relativity, in which de Bothezat explores even more fundamental issues as human cognition, rationalism versus realism, the meaning of number, infinity, continuity, and, of course, absolute time and motion. Only after eight chapters of rigorous discussion of these fundamental concepts does he turn his attention to the Special Theory of Relativity and the concept of ether. Waxing philosophical in the tradition of the Greeks and Poincaré, this book walks through the necessary steps to understand nature at a fundamental level. The discussion of how Einstein's ideas fail is almost a side benefit.

Augustin Maior

Augustin Sabiniu Maior (August 22, 1882, Reghin - October 3, 1964, Cluj), great Romanian physicist and engineer, the inventor of the multiple telephony.


Maior was born in Reghin as son of a schoolteacher and attended high school in his hometown, then at Târgu-Mureş and Budapest, developing in this years an original electrical work. He graduated as an engineer in Budapest Polytechnical School (1905), while hearing courses of mathematics and physics at Vienna, Göttingen and München (as a private student), taking knowledge of the great scientific conquests of the early-century, from quantum mechanics and Planck's theory to the Einstein's relativity theory. In 1905, Augustin Maior was employed as an engineer in the Electricity Laboratory of the General Directorate of Posts in Budapest. After World War I, was briefly (1919-1920) General Director of Posts, Telegraph and Telephone in Transylvania and the first leader of Schools of Telegraph and Telephone in this Romanian province. He becomes at the same time, for many decades, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Cluj (1920-1956), appointed to chair this specialty in Romania.

In the early years of our century, the phone was in a considerable expansion, but the existing network could not cope with increasing needs of telecommunications. The researches were directed to increasing transmission capacity by multiple telephony, but the results were unsatisfactory. After many trials, unsuccessful or only partially successful, Augustin Maior made an operational station using alternative currents carry high frequency in 1906, to send at first two, then five calls on the same telephone circuit, 15 kilometers long. In 1907 he published its results and the scheme of the multiple telephony in the best-known speciality journal of his time (Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift - ETZ) and the following year presented a communication at the first Conference of PTT Engineers. However, in March 1911, the English magazine "The Electrician" assigns the invention of multiple telephony to the U.S. Major George Owen Squier, who had in 1910 (four years after Maior), another system of multiple telephony, more rudimentary, with only two of simultaneous phone calls and on a much shorter cable; but Squier achieve, shortly thereafter, to bring his new technology to the market.

To mention in addition, the scientific contributions of Augustin Maior in electricity and electrotehnics, theory of relativity, thermodynamics, radiation. He proposed early transmission of electricity over large distances by currents of high frequency and introduced in the quantum theory a new function called quasientropic.