Neumann Maria

b. June 22, 1905, Lugoj, Austria-Hungary - d. August 28, 2003, Timișoara, Romania

Mathematician, teacher

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Maria Neumann

She was a Romanian mathematician, of Jewish origin, who distinguished herself mainly through research in non-Euclidean geometries, including in the field of János Bolyai's scientific heritage. She was an associate professor at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Timișoara.

Maria Neumann s-a născut în anul 1905 într-o familie de evrei maghiarofoni din orașul Lugoj, în Banat, pe atunci în Regatul Ungariei, în cadrul Imperiului Austro-Ungar, azi în România.

Her grandfather, the doctor Dr. Philipp Neumann (1836-1901) was one of the outstanding personalities in the city. In 1866 he founded the epidemiological hospital, from 1867 he was the primary doctor of the county, and in 1876 he became the director of the hospital for venereal diseases. He was the president of the Hevra Kadisha Funeral Home, and also the president of the board of directors of the Israel Elementary School. He built one of the most beautiful houses in the center of Lugoj. At his death a day of mourning was declared in the city. Maria's uncle, Julius Neumann, was a professor of gynecology at the University of Vienna, and her brother, Joseph, a research biologist in Paris.

Maria was the second of two children of the lawyer Dr. Eugen Neumann and of Ilka, born Németh. She was a student at the Piarist Gymnasium in Timișoara, and in the last year at the Piarist High School. After the baccalaureate exam in 1923, she studied mathematics at King Ferdinand University in Cluj. At the end of her studies in 1930, as a Jew, she did not have the opportunity to remain in university education and taught as a mathematics teacher in high schools: one of the German high schools in Timișoara (1933-1934), a high school in Ramnicu Valcea (1934-1936 ), then at the Israelite High School in Timișoara (1936-1949) and in parallel at the Carmen Sylva State High School for Girls in Timișoara (1936-1940), from where she was fired following the “racial laws” of 1940. In her activity by teacher Maria Neumann had students who later distinguished themselves as mathematicians and scientists, such as Emeric Deutsch, Francisc Radó, Bernhard Rothenstein, George Lusztig and others.

During the communist regime, she taught for several years (1949-1952) at the Pedagogical Institute in Timișoara, and in 1962-1971 she became an associate professor at the university in the city. In 1968 she had at the University of Bucharest the doctoral exam in sciences, with the thesis „On an algebraic model of plane hyperbolic geometry‟ under the guidance of prof. Nicolae N. Mihăileanu. Neumann collaborated with Mihăileanu in writing textbooks on the basics of geometry. In 1971 she retired. She published, among others, works in the fields of non-Euclidean and projective geometry, on the algebraic, logical and axiomatic instrument.

Writer and scientist György Mandics characterized Maria Neumann's personality and work as follows: "The activity of the talented mathematician Maria Neumann is based on a highly developed abstract thinking, on a mathematical culture far superior to the environment in which she lived. ... what she achieved it certainly remains a solid work, with many elements that could serve as benchmarks for further development."

She died in 2003 at the age of 98 and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Timisoara. Among the young mathematicians she mentored in the last years of her life was the computer scientist Octavian Mocanu, who works in Catalonia.

Photo in Francisc Ürményi's book (see Sources)

Casa părintească Dr. Neumann în Lugoj

Publications (selection)

  • Maria Neumann, N.N.Mihăileanu - Basics of Geometry and Fundamentals of Geometry
  • Neumann Mária, Salló Ervin, Toró Tibor. A semmiből egy új világot teremtettem (Out of nothing I created a new world) - about the work of János Bolyai. Facla Könyvkiadó, Temesvár, 1974.
  • Egyed Péter, Mandics György, Neumann Mária, Salló Ervin, Modell és valóság, Facla Könyvkiadó, Temesvár, 1982.
  • M. Huschitt, A. Ioanoviciu, N. Mihăileanu, M. Neumann, P. Stanciu, E. Visa Collection of problems of systematic and projective geometry, Didactic and Pedagogical Publishing House, Bucharest, 1971.

Sources