Spiru Haret

Who was Spiru Haret?

Spiru C. Haret was a Romanian-Armenian mathematician, astronomer and politician. 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, Haret ran deep reforms, building the modern Romanian education system. He was made a full member of the Romanian Academy in 1892.

He also founded the Astronomical observatory in Bucharest, appointing Nicolae Coculescu as its first director. The crater Haret on the Moon is named after him.