Radu Bălescu

Radu Bălescu (Bucharest, 18 July 1932 – 1 June 2006, Bucharest) was a Romanian and Belgian (since 1959) scientist and professor at the Statistical and Plasma Physics group of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB).

He studied at the Titu Maiorescu High School^[1] in Bucharest (1943–1948) and the Athénée Royal d'Ixelles (1948–1950). At the ULB (1950–1958) he studied chemistry and obtained a PhD in 1958. He started his academic career in 1957 at the ULB as an assistant (with Prof. Ilya Prigogine) at the Service de Physique Théorique et Mathématique. He became a professor at the ULB in 1964. He worked on the statistical physics of charged particles (Bălescu-Lenard collision operator^[2]) and on the theory of transport of magnetically confined plasmas. Radu Balescu was involved in the European fusion programme for more than 30 years as a scientist and as the head of research unit of the ULB group in the Euratom-Belgian state Association.

In 1970 he was awarded the Francqui Prize on Exact Sciences. In 2000 he received the Hannes Alfvén Prize.

References

^ "Alumni". www.cnilcb.ro (in Romanian). Ion Luca Caragiale National College Bucharest. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
^ Mynick, Harry E. (1988). "The generalized Balescu-Lenard collision Operator". Journal of Plasma Physics. 39 (2). Cambridge University Press (CUP): 303–317. doi:10.1017/s0022377800013052. ISSN 0022-3778.

Journal

Belyi, V. V.; Kukharenko, Yu. A.; Wallenborn, J. (6 May 1996). "Pair Correlation Function and Nonlinear Kinetic Equation for a Spatially Uniform Polarizable Nonideal Plasma". Physical Review Letters. 76 (19). American Physical Society (APS): 3554–3557. doi:10.1103/physrevlett.76.3554. ISSN 0031-9007.