Ion Barbu

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For other people named Ion Barbu, see Ion Barbu (disambiguation).
Ion Barbu
Ion Barbu.jpg
Born Dan Barbilian
March 18, 1895
C�mpulung, Kingdom of Romania
Died August 11, 1961 (aged 66)
Bucharest, Romanian People's Republic
Resting place Bellu Cemetery, Sector 4, Bucharest, Romania
Nationality Romanian
Citizenship
Kingdom of Romania
Romanian People's Republic
Education
University of Groningen
University of T�bingen
University of Berlin
Alma mater University of Bucharest (BS and PhD in Mathematics)
Occupation
poet
mathematician
Years active 1919�1961
Era Interwar period
Notable work
Second game (Joc secund)
Movement
Parnassianism
Hermeticism
Expressionism
Spouse(s) Gerda Barbu
Parents
Constantin Barbilian (father)
Smaranda ?oiculescu (mother)
Scientific career
Fields Geometry
Institutions University of Bucharest
Thesis Canonical representation of the addition of hyperelliptic functions
(1929)
Doctoral advisor Gheorghe ?i?eica
Ion Barbu (Romanian pronunciation: [i'on 'barbu], pen name of Dan Barbilian; 18
March 1895 �11 August 1961) was a Romanian mathematician and poet. His name is
associated with the Mathematics Subject Classification number 51C05, which is a
major posthumous recognition reserved only to pioneers of investigations in an area
of mathematical inquiry.[1]

Contents
1 Early life
2 Achievements in mathematics
2.1 Apollonian metric
2.2 Ring geometry
2.3 Works
3 Academic career
4 Political creed
5 Death and legacy
6 Presence in English language anthologies
7 References
Early life
Born in C�mpulung-Muscel, Arge? County, he was the son of Constantin Barbilian and
Smaranda, born ?oiculescu. He attended elementary school in C�mpulung, Damiene?ti,
and St�lpeni, and for secondary studies he went to the Ion Bratianu High School in
Pite?ti, the Dinicu Golescu High School in C�mpulung, and finally the Gheorghe
Lazar High School and the Mihai Viteazul High School in Bucharest.[2] During that
time, he discovered that he had a talent for mathematics, and started publishing in
Gazeta Matematica; it was also then that he discovered his passion for poetry.
Barbu was known as "one of the greatest Romanian poets of the twentieth century and
perhaps the greatest of all" according to Romanian literary critic Alexandru
Cioranescu.[3] As a poet, he is known for his volume Joc secund ("Mirrored Play").
[4]

He was a student at the University of Bucharest when World War I caused his studies
to be interrupted by military service. He completed his degree in 1921. He then
went to the University of G�ttingen to study number theory with Edmund Landau for
two years. Returning to Bucharest, he studied with Gheorghe ?i?eica, completing in
1929 his thesis, Canonical representation of the addition of hyperelliptic
functions.[5][6]

Achievements in mathematics
Apollonian metric
In 1934, Barbilian published his article[7] describing metrization of a region K,
the interior of a simple closed curve J. Let xy denote the Euclidean distance from
x to y. Barbilian's function for the distance from a to b in K is

{\displaystyle d(a,b)=\log {\underset {p\in J}{\max }}(pa/pb)+\log {\underset {q\in

J}{\max }}(qb/qa).}{\displaystyle d(a,b)=\log {\underset {p\in J}{\max }}(pa/pb)+\
log {\underset {q\in J}{\max }}(qb/qa).}
At the University of Missouri in 1938 Leonard Blumenthal wrote Distance Geometry. A
Study of the Development of Abstract Metrics,[8] where he used the term "Barbilian
spaces" for metric spaces based on Barbilian's function to obtain their metric. And
in 1954 the American Mathematical Monthly published an article by Paul J. Kelly on
Barbilian's method of metrizing a region bounded by a curve.[9] Barbilian claimed
he did not have access to Kelly's publication, but he did read Blumenthal's review
to it in Mathematical Reviews and he understood Kelly's construction. This
motivated him to write in final form a series of four papers, which appeared after
1958, where the metric geometry of the spaces that today bears his name is
investigated thoroughly.

He answered in 1959 with an article[10] which described "a very general procedure
of metrization through which the positive functions of two points, on certain sets,
can be refined to a distance." Besides Blumenthal and Kelly, articles on "Barbilian
spaces" have appeared in the 1990s from Patricia Souza, while Wladimir G. Boskoff,
Marian G. Ciuca and Bogdan Suceava wrote in the 2000s about "Barbilian's
metrization procedure".[11] Barbilian indicated in his paper Asupra unui principiu
de metrizare that he preferred the term "Apollonian metric space", and articles
from Alan F. Beardon, Frederick Gehring and Kari Hag, Peter A. H�str�, Zair
Ibragimov and others use that term. According to Suceava,[12] "Barbilian�s
metrization procedure is important for at least three reasons: (1) It yields a
natural generalization of Poincar� and Beltrami-Klein�s hyperbolic geometries; (2)
It has been studied in the context of the study of Apollonian metric; (3) Provides
a large class of examples of Lagrange generalized metrics irreducible to Riemann,
Finsler, or Lagrange metrics."

Ring geometry
Barbilian made a contribution to the foundations of geometry with his articles in
1940 and 1941 in Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung on projective
planes with coordinates from a ring.[13][14] According to Boskoff and Suceava, this
work "inspired research in ring geometries, nowadays associated with his,
Hjelmslev�s and Klingenberg�s names." A more critical stance was taken in 1995 by
Ferdinand D. Velkamp:

A systematic study of projective planes over large classes of associative rings was
initiated by D. Barbilian. His very general approach in [1940 and 41] remained
rather unsatisfactory, however, his axioms were partly of a geometric nature,
partly algebraic as pertaining to the ring of coordinates, and there were a number
of difficulties which Barbilian could not overcome.[15]
Nevertheless, in 1989 John R. Faulkner wrote an article "Barbilian Planes"[16] that
clarified terminology and advanced the study. In his introduction he wrote:

A classical result from projective geometry is that a Desarguesian projective plane

is coordinatized by an associative division ring. A Barbilian plane is a geometric
structure which extends the notion of a projective plane and thereby allows a
coordinate ring which is not necessarily a division ring. There are advantages ...
Works
1956: Teoria aritmetica a idealelor (�n inele necomutative), Editura Academiei
Republicii Populare Rom�ne, Bucharest. MR0085247
1960: Grupuri cu operatori: Teoremele de descompunere ale algebrei, Editura
Academiei Republicii Populare Rom�ne, Bucharest. MR0125888
Academic career
In 1942, Barbilian was named professor at the University of Bucharest, with some
help from fellow mathematician Grigore Moisil.[17]

As a mathematician, Barbilian authored 80 research papers and studies. His last

paper, written in collaboration with Nicolae Radu, appeared posthumously, in 1962,
and is the last in the cycle of four works where he investigates the Apollonian
metric.

Political creed
Barbu was mostly apolitical, with one exception: around 1940 he became a
sympathizer of the fascist movement The Iron Guard (hoping to get a professorship
if they came to power), dedicating some poems to one of its leaders, Corneliu Zelea
Codreanu. In 1940, he also wrote a poem praising Hitler.[18][19]

Death and legacy

Grave in Bellu Cemetery

Commemorative plaque affixed on Barbu's house by the Bucharest City Hall in 1991
Ion Barbu died in Bucharest in 1961, and is buried at Bellu Cemetery.

The Ion Barbu Theoretical High School in Pite?ti, the Ion Barbu Technological High
School in Giurgiu, and the Dan Barbilian Theoretical High School in C�mpulung are
all named after him.

Presence in English language anthologies

Born in Utopia - An anthology of Modern and Contemporary Romanian Poetry - Carmen
Firan and Paul Doru Mugur (editors) with Edward Foster - Talisman House Publishers
- 2006 - ISBN 1-58498-050-8
Testament � Anthology of Modern Romanian Verse / Testament - Antologie de Poezie
Rom�na Moderna � Bilingual Edition English & Romanian � Daniel Ioni?a (editor and
translator) with Eva Foster and Daniel Reynaud � Minerva Publishing 2012 and 2015
(second edition) - ISBN 978-973-21-1006-5
Testament - Anthology of Romanian Verse - American Edition - monolingual English
language edition - Daniel Ioni?a (editor and principal translator) with Eva Foster,
Daniel Reynaud and Rochelle Bews - Australian-Romanian Academy for Culture - 2017 -
ISBN 978-0-9953502-0-5
References
"MathSciNet: 51C05 (1980-now) Ring geometry (Hjelmslev, Barbilian, etc.)".
American Mathematical Society.
Voiculesu, C. (March 23, 2020). "Ion Barbu/Dan Barbilian, poet ?i matematician".
Arge? Expres. Retrieved May 9, 2021.
Alexandru Cioranescu (1981) Ion Barbu, Twayne Publishers, Boston, ISBN 0-8057-
6432-1
Ion Barbu from Intitutul Na?ional de Cercetare, Romania.
Boskoff, Wladimir G.; Suceava, Bogdan (2007). "Barbilian spaces: the history of a
geometric idea". Historia Mathematica. 34 (2): 221�224.
doi:10.1016/j.hm.2006.06.001.
Ion Barbu at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
"Einordnung von Lobayschewskys Massenbestimmung in einer gewissen algemeinen
Metrik der Jordansche Bereiche", Casopis Matematiky a Fysiky 64:182,3
University of Missouri Studies #13
Paul J. Kelly (1954) "Barbilian geometry and the Poincar� model", American
Mathematical Monthly 61:311�19 doi:10.2307/2307467 MR0061397
Dan Barbilian, "Asupra unui principiu de metrizare", Academia Republicii Populare
Rom�ne. Studii ?i Cercetari Matematice 10 (1959), 69�116. MR0107848
Boskoff, Wladimir G.; Suceava, Bogdan D. (2008), "Barbilian's metrization
procedure in the plane yields either Riemannian or Lagrange generalized metrics",
Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal, 58 (4): 1059�1068, doi:10.1007/s10587-008-0068-
x, hdl:10338.dmlcz/140439, MR 2471165, S2CID 54742376
Suceava, Bogdan (2011), "Distances generated by Barbilian's metrization procedure
by oscillation of sublogarithmic functions", Houston Journal of Mathematics, 37:
147�159, CiteSeerX 10.1.1.433.7757, MR 2786550
D. Barbilian (1940,1) "Zur Axiomatik der projecktiven ebenen Ringgeometrien" I,II,
Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung 50:179�229 MR0003710,
51:34�76, MR0005628
Kvirikashvili, T.G. (2008). "Projective geometries over rings and modular
lattices". Journal of Mathematical Sciences. 153 (4): 495�505. doi:10.1007/s10958-
008-9133-0. MR 2731947. S2CID 120567853.
Veldkamp, Ferdinand D. (1995). "Geometry over Rings". Handbook of Incidence
Geometry: 1033�1084. doi:10.1016/B978-044488355-1/50021-9. ISBN 9780444883551. MR
2320101.
Faulkner, John R. (1989). "Barbilian Planes". Geometriae Dedicata. 30 (2): 125�81.
doi:10.1007/bf00181549. MR 1000255. S2CID 189890461.
O'Connor, John J; Edmund F. Robertson, "Grigore C. Moisil", MacTutor History of
Mathematics archive
"Caderea poetului" (in Romanian). Rom�nia Literara. Archived from the original on
April 29, 2014. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
"Riga Crypto, drogurile si legionarii" (in Romanian). Adevarul. Retrieved August
30, 2013.
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