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Spiru Haret
(February 15, 1851, Iaşi – 17 December 1912) was a Romanian mathematician,
astronomer and politician of Armenian descent. 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, Spiru Haret ran deep reforms, building
the modern Romanian education system. He was made a full member of the
Romanian Academy in 1892.
Spiru Haret also founded the Astronomical observatory in Bucharest,
appointing Nicolae Coculescu as its first director. A crater on the Moon was
named after him: Haret.
More at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiru_Haret |
