Florentin Smarandache

Born in Balcesti[?], in the Romanian district of Vâlcea[?], he fled the country in 1988 and emmigrated to the United States in 1990. He obtained a doctorate in mathematics from the State University of Chisinau[?], Moldova, in 1997. He works as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of New Mexico[?], Gallup branch, a two-year college.

Smarandache has published poems, a novel, dramas and fiction in Romanian, French, and English. His writings often have a paradoxical bend, and in fact he describes himself as a "leader of paradoxism". He invented a new idiosyncratic approach to dialectics he calls neutrosophy.

In mathematics, he has published in number theory and statistics. His most influential work was a book listing many new and unsolved problems in number theory, most of them having to do with certain new sequences he defined. A typical example is the sequence 1, 11, 112, 1123, 11235, ... with the n-th entry obtained by concatenating the base ten digit expansions of the first n Fibonacci numbers. He also introduced the "Smarandache function[?]" S(n), defined as the smallest number such that n divides S(n)!.

Smarandache has had over 60 books published in one form or another. Much works by him or about notions invented by him were distributed by American Research Press, a small publisher which gives as its contact a post office box in Rehoboth[?], New Mexico (near Gallup) and the yahoo.com e-mail address of a Dr. Minh Perez. Others have been edited by Xiquan Publishing House Staff, a similarly closely aligned group which has only ever edited Smarandache's work. Much of his work is available from the "Books on Demand" section of Proquest[?], which sells black-and-white reproductions of copyright-cleared, out-of-print books.

The Smarandache Notions Journal (formerly known as Smarandache Functions Journal) is also published by American Research Press. The Smarandache Functions Journal and the American Research Press both give as their web page the home page of Smarandache at the University of New Mexico, Gallup.

Followers

A number of names are associated with that of Smarandache. Dr. Minh Perez, already mentioned as a distributor of his European-published books in America, is one example.

Another example is Charles T. Le who was a student at Arizona State University where is a large "The Florentin Smarandache Papers" special collection in the Hayden Library at http://www.asu.edu/lib/speccoll/info/entries and who became his literary agent.

Outer-Art

Outer-Art is an idea created by Smarandache in the 1990s. He proposed creating the least artistic thing and calling it artwork. Smarandache claims that the latest fad is exactly what used to be considered very un-artistic. Smarandache called for an "upside-down artwork" to support this claim, in which ugly, silly, wrong, and impossible works would be highly artistic. Smarandache has published two outer-albums, the last one called oUTER-aRT, the Worst Possible Art in the World! (2002)

Smarandache Geometry

Smarandache invented a type of geometry which some call "Smarandache geometries". Smarandache geometries are non-Euclidean[?], and sometimes partially Euclidian[?] and partially non-Euclidean, geometries. They have at least one axiom which behaves in at least two different ways within the same space (validated and invalided, or only invalidated but in multiple distinct ways).

As a particular axiom let's take Euclid's fifth postulate. In Euclidean or parabolic geometry a line has one parallel only through a given point. In Lobacevskian or hyperbolic geometry a line has at least two parallels through a given point. In Riemannian or elliptic geometry a line has no parallel through a given point. Whereas in Smarandache geometries there are lines which have no parallels through a given point and other lines which have one or more parallels through a given point (the fifth postulate is invalidated in many ways).

The Euclidean, Lobachevskian, and Riemannian geometries may be united altogether, in the same space, by some Smarandache geometries.

Howard Iseri constructed a model on a 2D-manifold for a particular such geometry, where Euclid's fifth postulate is replaced by various statements within the same geometric space.

External links

• Article about Florentin Smarandache (http://www.ad-astra.ro/whoswho/view_profile.php?user_id=91&lang=en) in the Ad Astra online project for the Romanian Scientific community
• American Research Press books (http://www.publishingonline.com/en/publisher/publisher_page.jhtml?id=1430086)
• Home page of Florentin Smarandache (http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/), identical with home page of the Smarandache Notions Journal
• mini-bio (http://www.allexperts.com/previousqv.asp?QuestionID=1742899) from allexperts.com
• Published books (http://www.addall.com/Browse/Author/2247349-1) (from addall.com)
• Out of Print books (http://wwwlib.umi.com/bod/search/basic) (from ProQuest books on demand]