Horia Hulubei

Education

He studied at the University of Iaşi and in Paris at the Sorbonne, with the Nobel laureate Jean Perrin as his PhD advisor; he obtained his Ph.D. from the Paris-Sorbonne University for his work with Jean Perrin. His Ph.D. thesis with the title "Contribution to the study of quantum diffusion of X-rays" was defended in 1933 in Paris in front of an examination committee chaired by Nobel laureate Marie Curie.

Scientific achievements

With the help of his advanced X-ray spectroscopy equipment he observed several previously unidentified X-ray spectral lines, and subsequently came to the decision that such lines are associated with new elements. Then, he claimed and published the discovery of a new element "moldavium" in 1936, the discovery of "sequanium" in 1939 and that of "dor" in 1945. Later, however, it was shown that the reported X-ray lines did not belong to new elements.

For his many scientific achievements the National Institute for Physics and Nuclear Engineering in Romania was named after him -- Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering - IFIN HH. He was the Founder and First Director of the Institute of Atomic Physics (IFA) in Bucharest, Romania. He became a titular member of the Romanian Academy in 1946; stripped of membership by the new communist regime in 1948, he was restored to the Academy in 1955.

University teaching

During the early 1960s and 1970s he was also a Professor of Atomic Physics in the Department of Atomic and Nuclear Physics of the School of Physics at the University of Bucharest, where he delivered elegant and clear lectures on the Compton effect and inelastic Compton scattering/resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS).

Publications