Prof. dr. eng.

RADU MUNTEANU
Science, technology and culture –
The spirals of becoming in the third
millenary

MOTTO: “School is not everything, but

everything without school is nothing... "

When life means decision, preference or refusal, organisation around two basic principles,
that of attractiveness and that of aversion, and is expressed in the frame of "panta rei", as an effort,
wave, flow, or collection, and all these are the outcomes of a less or more consistently pursued aim,
related to the power and private and public reaction, then the approach from the viewpoint of
independent and inventive thought, scientific reasoning and argumentation-based dialogue places
cognitive content in the practical ideology of subjectivity and responsibility.
In the science prospective-projective dimension seen as a model for human solidarity and
sustainable development, professor engineer Radu Munteanu, Ph.D., distinguishes, clarifies, and
ranks the intellectual matter of knowledge and action in the engineering environment and defines
his own sphere of interest for the kinds of action needed in high performance engineering in the
context of a professional career that was born in a system of values and of practical and theoretical
interactions.
The validity of the professional route in the technical, scientific and academic space in Cluj,
of Professor Radu Munteanu’s personality shows a solid specialised and cultural background, with
wide intellectual availability and a behaviour marked by affective, motivating and attitudinal
features of general and differential as well as allocentrical opening.
The picture of the engineering education received in the Faculty of Electrotechnics that prof.
Radu Munteanu graduated in the Polytechnic Institute of Cluj in 1968 reflect an identity that was
exponentially consolidated by self improvement, confidence, wish to be excellent, perseverance,
initiative and conscientiousness..
The image of his career has been perfected in his 40 years of teaching career in The
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, where he occupied in turn the positions of assistant (1969-
1974), lecturer (1974-1990), reader (1990-1992) and professor (since 1992).The professional leap
was marked in 1982, when he defended his Ph.D. thesis in the "Traian Vuia" Polytechnical Institute
of Timişoara.
The fundamental competences acquired in electrical and electronic measurements, statistical
control and reliability, intelligent measuring systems and virtual instrumentation, have won him a
place of importance in the world of related specialists.
The aggregation of constant concerns in electrical engineering on the optimisation of
consumption of electrical and thermal energy, the electromagnetic modelling of thermal
phenomena, sequential control, , electrostatic phenomena, measuring technologies and equipment,
electro technologies, magnetical non-linear devices, non-linear oscillations in physical systems and
reliability was achieved in the context of a permanent search for novelty and by methodological

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improvement of the cognitive structures, while he also continued specialisation in various parts of
the world: Ecole Politechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland (1974-1975), Instituto
Politecnico do Porto, Portugal (1994, 1995, 1996), University of Catania, Italy (1995), University
"Federico II", Napoli (1998,1999), University of Gent, Belgium (1995).
The operational reason of the scientific, technical and technological production with a well
calculated reflexive and thought-science planned ahead action, the Cluj academic Radu Munteanu
investigated the set of positive knowledge fields concerned by surprising polymorphous processes
in the triad matter-energy-information.
The complementary perspective of the specialist filled with knowledge and modesty, by
adaptation and modification, has included in the professional success strategies to optimise and
develop technical higher education as a teacher, as a dean of the Faculty of Electrotechnics (1990-
2004) as a rector of the Technical university of Cluj. The stake of his activity as a teacher or
researcher was outlined by the approach, research and experimentation of varied technological
issues based on the generation of new sources of structural innovation and their application to
electrical engineering, such as the development of instrumental and metrological techniques leading
to the accumulation, checking and control of data concerning electricity phenomena.
Connected principially and methodologically to the engineering metasystem of the time and
receptive to the praxiological framework projected in the social global system, professor Radu
Munteanu has signalled the epistemic plane in his whole theoretical and practical activity. The
professional maturity and the managerial experience enabled him to integrate all the action
segments efficiently, with a lucid and selective relation to the reference system of the technical,
scientific, cultural and educational achievements in the world.
The research based on analysis instruments, modelling and capitalisation of theoretical
constructions has revealed and underlined the superiority and efficiency of the management focused
on forming and informing.
Motivation and the conscience of the fulfilment on the way to knowledge support the
professional swing challenged by the synchronisation with the ever increasing concern for the
practically unlimited issues related to the contemporary technological civilisation.
Author of many programs and projects that meant use of own energy ant time, supporter of
the individual's alignment to the world of ideas and scientific and concise syntactic formulae, in a
thinking that by shades and forms is a proof of the fact that he can adapt his means to modern
delivery and information, Radu Munteanu has strengthened his creative powers and responded to
the many factual questions defining the ample and diversified spectrum of the efficiency-oriented
optimised transfer of theoretical and practical knowledge. To integrate theory and practice through
fundamental and applicative research results and in general, through his whole activity as a rector,
he considers that the preservation of the scientific values and traditions of the famous university to
which he belongs is the only measure.
Active in many social areas and concerned with interdisciplinary he produced interesting
theories related to the understanding of the economic, social and political realities of this time.
Thinker and researcher, frequently present in the socio-cultural Clujean mass-media, Radu
Munteanu catches with originality the trends of the human register at the level of the community,
being both a charming and spontaneous interlocutor. In his public career he had the opportunity of
meeting and collaborating with famous personalities of science and education from home and
abroad. The research performed refers to varied topics and their outcome is represented by the
numerous teaching and research publications. He wrote 247 articles that were published in 22
countries, 17 academic textbooks, and more than 27 engineering books among which we can list:
Vade-Mecum Of Electrical Measurements vol I-II (1973,1974); Statistic Control and Reliability
(1982); Applications of the Finite Element Method to the Dynamics of the Measurement Systems
(1996); Transducers in Measuring Vibrations (1996); Electrotechnics and Power Converters
(1997); Experimental Data Processing Theory and Practice (1997); Data Acquisition and

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Processing Systems (1997); Estimate of the Industrial Products Quality (1999); Introduction to
Quality Engineering (2001); Research and Development Management (2003); Energy and
Environment (2005), Electrical Measurement of Non-Electrical Magnitudes (2006) etc. Besides
these technical topics, he has systematically been concerned with other aspects of the scientific and
social life, the most relevant publications being: Higher Education Reform Issues (1998), School
and Time (1998); The Team (1996); The Age of Remembrances (1999); A Time Syntagma: Research
and Change Management (1999); Memory Sand Castles (2000); Aspects Concerning Higher
Education Research (2001); Research Centre Management (2003), Project Management Practice
(2003), Inventeurs Roumains (2006) etc.
The exercise of his heuristic virtues can be seen in the 13 patents, 12 inventor certificates,
participation in 56 research contracts with national and foreign partners, 45 prototypes of devices
and plants and others.
In the community of experts, professor Radu Munteanu identifies himself by affiliation to
numerous bodies, societies, organisations and associations by means of which he keeps a permanent
contact for the benefit of the Technical University of Cluj: invited guest at EPFL, Lausanne,
Switzerland (1990, 1993, 1994, 1995); UTB Belfort, France (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005) and
participation in the European programs such as Tempus, Socrates, Phare, Leonardo da Vinci. He is
also the Coordinator of the National Centre for the Science Politics and Scientometry, the organizer
of some national (1986, 1988) and international conferences (1995, 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2004) full
member of the Romanian Academy of Technical Sciences, vice-president of the National University
Research Council, member of The National Council for the Recognition of Academic Grades,
Diplomas and Certificates, member of The Advisory Committee of the National Agency for
Science, Technology and Innovation, founder of the Consortium of the Faculties of Electrical
Engineering in Romania, former reporter of " The International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development for Higher Education and Technology" etc. Since 2004, he has been appointed vice-
president of the National Council of Rectors in Romania, and since 2005 is the member of the
National Council for the Reform in Education.
He is a member of scientific societies in Romania and abroad, such as The European Science
Foundation (in Standing Committee for Physical and Engineering Sciences), Association Suisse des
Electriciens, Societe Royale Belge des Electriciens, European association for Education in
Electrical and Information Engineering, I.E.E.E. (SUA), member of the General Board of IMEKO,
member of the Steering Committee on Higher Education and Research, Council of Europe (din
2004), member of AGIR, of the Romanian Society of Concurrent Engineering, Romanian Society
of Measurements etc, included in the "International Directory of Distinguished Leadership" Eight
Edition, American Biographical Institute (1998) and the president of the Cluj subsidiary of the
Academy of Technical Sciences.
The high level scientific and teaching activity brought him many awards, distinctions and
prizes: The Romanian Academy Prize (1996); Medal of Scientific Merit, “Faithful service" National
Order Knight (2000); Medal "Honneur aux Hommes de Valeur" (Switzerland, 1982); Doctor
Honoris Causa of "Pro Deo" University of New York (1995); University of Craiova (2002),
Northern University of Baia Mare (2003), University of Piteşti (2004), University of Oradea
(2005), "Aurel Vlaicu" University of Arad (2006), "Merit de l`Invention"-Bruxelles (2005 , 2007),
and "Petru Maior" University of Tg. Mureş (2007).
Due to the inventions made he received gold medals at some of the most prestigious
international fairs such as those in Geneve, Bruxelles, Seul, Taipei, Budapest, Zagreb, Sevastopol
and Warsaw; other international prizes received come from Daimler-Chrysler, The Russian
Federation Minister of Education Prize, Bosnia Herzegovina (Nicola Tesla) etc.

He wrote and published many articles and studies. He forms part of 11 editorial boards of
some national and international publications, among which: "Revue Roumaine des Sciences

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Techniques - series "Electrotechnique et Energetique" (Romanian Academy); he is associate editor
of "International Journal of Electrical Engineering in Transportation" (France) and editor of the
international "Electromotion" and "Acta Electrotehnica" or national journals: "The Virtual
Instrumentation Review ", "The Review of Science Politics and Scientrometry" etc. Prof. Munteanu
also takes an active part in the local media, he is editor-in-chief of the daily "Informaţia Cluj" as
well as of other editorial boards. In this quality he has published over 1500 articles and is a member
of the Professional Journalists Union in Romania.
Quite optimistic with respect to the strategic repositioning of the mission and function of
education, supporting his arguments with fighting spirit, having refined taste and selective with his
friends, being enthusiastic when defending the truths of science and engineering, Radu Munteanu
experiences the delight, tension and impatience of the thought through the peremptory quality of his
actions in a world off information, knowledge and smartness where ha constantly finds many-sided
opportunities to revive thinking.
*
* *
We never know whether we can wake up tomorrow; however, we do not love talking about
the future. I see this future technological and intellectual, with changes in all fields, and with an
accompanying decline of all ideologies. How we see the world influences our own condition and
that is why the ideology of the future will not rely on certitudes, but on questions. This means more
awareness and more knowledge at the same time.
The pace of the changes will be fast, today's everything will differ from that of yesterday and
from that of tomorrow. Not even science remains unchanged. Science, in its deterministic meaning,
used to support Leibnitz's idea that the world was a clock...
We should become more understanding and we should offer our friendship to those around
us as this is the only way of measuring a man's actions. I think friendship is the perfect human
feeling as it is the freest. This is the only mere human passion, the rest having the origin in animals
and consequently being physical in character. Of course, friendship is the victory upon the
biological in use, kindness leading to more friends than power. However, we cannot advance too
much in our friendship if we do not forgive one another's flaws and when ours friends are one-eyed
we should look at them from one side ...
Then we should not forget that the miracle dwells in us, and it would be useless to watch the
sky in case we had no wish of flying, so that the way in which we admit our own destiny may be
more important than our fate...
The sun rises only for those who wake up before the sunrise...

- What do you think the major significance of your personality consists in, as a
university staff and with respect to social relations and interactions as well?
- This is a difficult question! I think that my personality similar to that of many others is the
romantic element of the ego as well as an inborn system of preferences and refusals. That is why I
perceive my personality as a place where my life's permanence and changes eternally meet.
However, I also think that my personality is also the outcome of the thought of the others...
-Who are the mentors of your evolution and those who made you opt for the
Polytechnical education? What are the frames of your intellectual and professional
construction?
-First,
I would like to pay homage to my primary school teachers, to Mr. Ruja from Chişineu
Criş and Mr. Şteţiu from Cluj, who received me in the form of today's "Gheorghe Bariţiu"
high school. Then the dedicated teachers from high school taught me that the time we live is
the only to belong to us for ever and that it is up to us how we shape it. In those years, Mr.
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 Roşeau and Mrs.Moga would tell us that history does not observe legends and that
Damocles's sword does not always hang above those deserve it, while Mr. Iaşinschi, Bota
and Ducaru persuaded us that all complaints usually have a wrong premise. Listening to Mr.
Drăghici and Marian we learnt that only when reminding things we could be able to choose
as memory is one of the permanently evident criterion... The tender-hearted Mrs. Popescu,
Bozac, Bucevschi, Ciobanu, Benga or Vlasa made us feel that beauty does not send you to
heaven. It sends you on the earth, where Mr. Ghergariu used to remind us that things always
requiring a piece of advice occur every moment... The gave me this hunger for light and the
wish of silently following them.
At that time I needed advice though I knew that any view can be confirmed if one has many
specialists at disposal to be consulted upon and that any simple problem can turn into an insoluble
one if too much talked about. Somebody even told me that when one can distinguish between a
good and a bad piece of advice it means that you are not in need of any. Maybe. I still needed
advice and direction.
Professor Vasile Ille persuaded me to attend the courses of the Polytechnic and I will always
remember the passion he put in telling me about the science and art of building or when he gave me
a present, the book called The man as a builder. I was almost sure that I was to pursue the way
opened to me by him. Before the entrance exam, in the train, between Cluj and Aiud, I met by
chance a teacher from Electrotechnics - Ovidiu Nicula – who convinced me to study Electrical
Engineering.
However, my professional life would have been totally different if a sad event had not made
me to accept to continue my doctoral studies under the advisorship of the great professor, academic
Toma Dordea from Timişoara. He used to explain to me: "Nothing in the order of these lights and
shadows can be easily changed, and if you resign yourself everything can remain as it was. But,
then you are condemned at not understanding that hope enables your own reorganisation in the
spirit of cleverness, though as time goes on sometimes the spirit redeems ignorance by mistakes ...”
How right he was! Even today, this great MAN of an enviable age has a lively and optimistic
wisdom that does not resemble the autumn melancholy. Whenever I think of the academic Toma
Dordea I admit that gratitude is in fact the memory of the soul.
While attending Professor Nicolae Ghircoiaşiu's lectures, I understood that mathematics
directs the engineer towards future and his perfect demonstrations reminded us that one should pass
in life through the "front door". We speak about our knowledge as about memories, but the figure of
Professor Dan Comşa detaches in full light as that of a man for whom the word epitomises deeds
and ideas... Then, professors Nicolae Patachi, Constantin Tudosie and Arpad Kelemen taught us
how to separate sand from the rest...
If I consider that gratitude for one's development is like interest from spiritual borrowings,
then I have to mention and underline what Marcel Jufer from Ecole Politechnique Federale in
Lausanne (Switzerland), and professor acknowledged in the entire world whose friendship
honoured me for more than 30 years meant for me.
Of course, this question required as first answer the homage paid to may parents...
It is not the same to be realistic today or to have been realistic one hundred years ago.
Reality has extended new shades and lights, new shadows and new ambiguities have been added to
it. However, this does not prevent us to get an exact measure of the world where man is born, loves
and dies, as he did one century ago. Now and then alike, the measure made the wise who did not
contradict what they could not grasp be cautious...
-Be it a form of energy requiring the production, storage, distribution and use or
information carrier meaning transmission, processing, conversion in perceptible
shapes and memorising, electricity arouses large –scale concerns for knowledge and
research. How can you explain your bias towards the field of electrical engineering and
what are the outcomes of the exertion of electrical engineering specialist competences?

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 - Electrotechnics or electrical engineering is a very vast domain. I dedicated mainly to
instrumentation and measurements in the approach of metrological problems.
Metrology is the science provides data on physical magnitudes, especially to their value,
while using the classical language of the laws with roots in mathematics. Metrology is applied to all
the phenomena that can be observed, better when the phenomena are more accurately known
because a measurement is more precise if the magnitude forming its object is better defined. The
ratio between metrology and the rest of the sciences is determined by the characteristics
conditioning the other sciences. Its laws are applied to all fields so that it is universal. With the help
of other sciences, metrology becomes an intrascience and its progress remains tightly linked to the
experimental development.
Its methods excellently serve interdisciplinary fields and many of the works achieved
(research articles, patents, equipment etc.) are the outcome of the needs. The technology of
measurement is much demanded because research and development in any field need measuring. In
this sense, part of the achievements consist in designing and producing measurement devices and
equipment, either independent or computer–assisted; they can still be met in high performance
industrial applications and some of them received rewards. The absolutely novel ones have been
patented.
We should mention that today more than 120 billion measurements are performed every day
that they are followed by scientific, technical, economic, social or other field-related decisions that
the value of the world level measuring equipment exceeds 1500 billion dollars, its annual growth
rate being of over 50 billion dollars. In some industrial branches, the cost paid for measurements
overcomes the cost of products by 20 % and there are millions of employees in metrology...
Why do we measure? Because if we measure, we can increase the level of knowledge and
understanding of the world and can put to work their results for a better life...
At the beginning the man was called "erectus"; when he became "sapiens" and "faber" he
changed in an eternal "homo metricus", understanding that absolute certitude is the privilege of the
uneducated minds, as J. Keyser said.
Together with the team of my department I outlined a realistic and needs-based strategy.
Measurements (be they isolated, in series, statistical or intelligent) intervene in scientific, technical,
economic and social activity, forming an important field of information technology as it supplies
quantitatively and qualitatively determined data for further processing or for automated control and
automation processes.
An in-depth-knowledge of the physical phenomena and of the technological processes led to
the development of more and more measurement methods in the framework of a variety of
measuring devices.
Within the research performed, I materialised the previous desideratum mainly by
developing virtual instrumentation, for which we dedicated the first laboratory ever in Romania.
Then we put the basis of the Virtual Instrumentation Review (RIV) launched with the help of the
field world leader The National Instruments Inc. (Austin, TX). The journal polarises the interest of
the specialists in the country.
Another preoccupation consisted in intelligent instrumentation, where the doctoral theses
whose advisor I am are a proof of certain and recognised scientific performance.
Many of our research outcomes are implemented, through national programmes or foreign
partnerships. All these results are beneficial for the department, for the Ph.D. students, for the
undergraduates as well, as they generate valuable specialists.
I would like to end by underlining the importance of the field I am working in, once again.
Metrology supplies part of the means with whose help man studies the environment he lives
in, with a view to putting it to work for the production of material and spiritual goods. Between

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measurement and action, there comes the operator, be it human or machine. Following certain
conventions, the machine can interpret the results of the measurements and can order an automated
technological process. Measurement is integrated in the machine; hence the automation process
cannot be devised with the lack of metrological elements. Another issue can be that automation can
come both in the measurement process and in the automated devices structure.
This idea postulates that technology is served by the measuring means and this is a
confirmation of the "zoon metron" feature of the civilised human.
-What are the most significant moments and events in your biography?
- This very natural question whose answer is equally simple: my marriage to Simona, the
birthdays of my children Radu and Mihai, my first and last school day as well as theirs. My
employment in The Polytechnic Institute, my first day in the laboratory. Then my specialisation in
Ecole Politechnique Federale of Lausanne and the defence of my Ph.D. thesis. I cannot forget the
date when I became a university professor, when I was elected dean and then rector.
Another landmark about whose mentioning I thought for a long while. It is the day when I
took part in a 100 km long competition. I was the first Romanian runner to end such a competition,
as specified in "The History of the Romanian Sports in Figures" (Ed. Junimea, Iaşi, 1977).
-How do you regard and where do you rank the engineering higher education
performed in The Technical University of Cluj, whose destiny you lead as a rector?
- The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca has covered a difficult way with cleverness,
during the last years, and now our institution is in a process of normal evolution towards becoming
a competitive and highly appreciated university.
The integration in the European area of education and research –one of the desiderata of
the enlarged European Community – the rendering of the specialisations and curricula
compatible with the European requirements represent objectives of the Technical University of
Cluj-Napoca that contribute to the development of a knowledge-based society.
The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca has brought an important contribution to the
training of the scientific and engineering elites for 85 years of technical higher education
(beginning with 1920) and to the development of the Romanian industry and economy. Therefore,
it represents a national asset that must be preserved and developed according to the objectives of
a knowledge-based society. The educational component is in a tight, though natural connection,
with research, providing competences to the would-be specialists at the level required by the
labour free market.
The Technical University of Cluj-Napoca states its European vocation by the convergent
developments in the European higher education space, in a competitive interuniversity and
research space, in an ever functional academic market. This statement requires transformation
and consequently generates the strategy of the university in a context marked by significant
changes.
The education of this millennium will emphasise the interdisciplinary and a customised
evolution of the engineering sciences. Their progress will be extremely rapid, because thy have
had the courage of admitting the errors they possess, are reserved in front of success and are
aware of the need for recognition of the past achievements. Having such a view, our strategy is
anticipatory as science is a spirit enterprise lighting the confused icon of the world in a large
collective adaptation effort ...
Providing an equal access to information and education, our university offers premises for
a society based on equal opportunities among specialities and underlines that education is not a
commercial product.
The values promoted by our university are related to competence, moral integrity, civic
culture and spirit, creativity, dynamism and personality, harmonisation of the individual and

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collective interest in the context of the full opening to the European education and research area.
The values learnt in the university make the would-be engineers have an analytical
thought, initiative, adaptability, with power of making decisions. In the engineering faculties,
there are concerns for managerial instruments such as creativity, algorithmic thinking, to convert
an activity or a process in a logical flux, easy to understand by the team members. In such a
perspective, engineers possess multidisciplinary competences, team competences, ready to
provide solutions and be true leaders.
The innovative content of our educational offer consists in the design of a flexible and
creative curriculum, applied in a social environment where responsibilities are shared, learning
technologies are interactive and the actors in the teaching process are very mobile.
We are in the middle of the reform process and we understand that nothing can be easily
changed.
Everything can remain as it was, if one submits or does not understand that hope allows
you to restructure cleverly what the fate once organised everything, refrained by circumstance...
-What is the role of electrical engineering education in the organisation and definition
of artificial intelligence, based on a multidisciplinary basic training, on solid
electronics, automation, computer, rapid data transfer and physics or mathematics
subtleties in a vast field of research and applications?
- Since 1882 when the department of physics of the Massachutes Institute of Technology
initiated the first study program foe electrical engineering until today, this domain underwent an
impressive dynamics. The technological changes in the last decades brought about a new
relationship between electrical engineering and information.
Traditional engineering concerns materials, technology, and energy. At present, the engineer
works more with information to properly choose or design equipment and technologies, to use or
efficiently reconvert power, respectively.
Information technology is thus integrated in electrical engineering both as a design
instrument (software) and control, measurement and command instrument (hardware + software).
This approach confers the true specialist in electrical engineering a professional multivalency that is
able to integrate the interdisciplinary aspect.
-To what extent, will advanced technology turn into desirable the basic objective of
improving human condition, when artificial muscles, artificial blood or even an
artificial nervous system generically called "the live computer” can be achieved by
implementing a biosensitive microprocessor of artificial proteins and organic
polymers?
--The theory of the dynamic systems defines universe as an infinity of component systems
evolving with time, where a continual double passing from simple to complex forms and
vice versa is present..
The live species can be summarised in the complex development of the natural systems of
self reproduction for which John von Neumann used a mathematical approach. For life, it was much
easier to develop self reproduction systems than intelligent systems that occurred later on. An
ambitious dream for man was then to produce life in its splendid human form..
It is difficult to anticipate what will happen in the future, but it is sure that since the atomic
bomb mankind has never known phenomena that could have more implications. Some say that the
world will be given to the "geniocracy", i.e. to the geniuses that could reach eternal life...
Others consider cloning as a legendary witness, with no in-between stage able to explain the
idea of creation obtained from uniqueness to the many. But the alter whispers that when mankind
tries to demolish its own myths, the outcome will be dust. It is from this reason that past becomes
history with more difficulty and the parenthesis of the present is always kept open.
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 What will happen in the future? Imagination cannot answer, it is too scarce to give an
acceptable answer and on the thin path between science and ethics the evil does not hear the noise
of the water carrying it further though pains die in the tear source...
-As a specialist in scientometry, how do you see the society of the future times , with
artificial islands, with artificially designed cities, with objects and habitats called
"intelligent” that beyond scientific or SF anticipations announce the challenges of the
third millennium among which the generalisation of the human-technology symbiosis
with the involvement of science, engineering and knowledge? How do you see the
reality anchored, in the philosophy of artificial intelligence or in the philosophy of the
artificial life?
- The cyberspace postmodernism instantaneously interacts and reshapes the daily human
behaviour, relative to the means of information propagation...
We live a revolution where the syntagma "you communicate, hence you live" pushes you to
the computer, fax, mail, electronics or phone or mobile phone, and the information technologies
tend to get more and more an ideological shade of meaning.
The Internet and its virtual world have modified the mentality by means of the instantaneous
and direct communication and education in school or university becomes more and more dependent
upon the virtual environment.
Turning the concept of" services without borders" into a material thing, electronic economy
will lead to a 70 % service sector in the gross domestic product of the highly developed countries
and almost 50 % in the case of countries in development, hence education will also be affected.
Space and time compress, the costs for the market introduction are reduced and those
concerned can do it simultaneously and in large numbers. The same electronic economy enables a
globalisation of the infrastructure of the world economy and services will rely more on cleverness,
information and ideas.
These advantages can lead to the capitalisation of borderless technologies, free and equal
access to information that will polarise the concern of all countries irrespective of the living
standard.
Your question requires a very< detailed answer, so that I will remain only in the field of
education, the university can also become virtual similar to communities or companies.
Frequently, electronic communication takes the form of the text, replacing the so-called
contextual social communication that classically transmits data, impressions, lecture knowledge etc.
from person to person.
Researchers show that the potential of communication through computers is best applied in
the academic environment through discussions, brainstorming, problems solving, team activities
and contributions expressed through the special training reached by research.
It is estimated that more than 160 "worldwide” type programmes can be found today,
providing courses either partially or fully through electronic means. Students and teachers have the
opportunity of studying or improving through online procedures, offering data and knowledge that
cannot be identified in real time by means of the traditional training methods, in an extremely large
and significant framework.
The studies made in the world underline the psychological aspects in the virtual lecture halls
in the context of computer mediated communication versus the conventional one.
In such a study made in classical lecture rooms with students and teachers, about 60 to 80 %
of the "total verbal exchange" comes from the teacher. This verbal amount delivered to the student
is similar to the written, electronically transmitted amount. furthermore, students favour to have the
written material in their hands as it is permanent as compared to the oral lecture delivered by the
teacher which that needs to be processed, in notes and concentrated ideas.
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 Research shows that "on line learning" is both active and interactive. Materials sent out in
"on-line seminars" indicate a high level of student-teacher-message interaction.
The teacher never lacks in the learning process, but he7she represents no more the central
focus, polarising all attention. The teacher becomes a high resolution academic service provider.
The "message" occupies the first line, being transmitted as part of the fundamental mechanism a
knowledge sending to the student.
Any student sending to the peers course components, views, questions, answers, opinions,
comments, who exchanges references, in fact, implicitly promotes the vital substance of the
information to be learnt for the academic environment.
Computer-mediated communication offers an additional dimension of the interaction
between the students. In this way the education carried out in virtual rooms turns out to be more
active and more participatory in the new learning environment.
In other words, both teachers and students can be later on teleworkers, undergoing specific
psychological pressures in this new situation.
In this way, they can become socially isolated and can mix up work time and spare time.
This activity is normally unsurveyed so self-discipline plays a special role and needs education.
Optimal performance at unexpected hours for other partners can occur as well as other aspects of
the kind.
The people formed and trained now suggest that information will be the strategic and
fundamental resource of the future, in the same way capital was in the industrial society.
-In the new epoch of universal and instantaneous communication, what do you think to
be the determinations of the reflection and meditation among the priorities allowing
the recovery of the ego and discovery of the proximity?
- Irrespective of the age, the recovery of the ego and the discovery of this fluid proximity
represent a difficult test. Both concepts are essential though when looking for them one has the
impression that time allows you to turn to stone in the unknown, taking the wind as a masque and
becoming your own enigma uselessly making efforts to solve it while your shadow goes on walking
in the world.
The ocean of information and the specificity of present-day provide for a reality where life
tells a twice faced story.
On the one hand, the story of the person in continuous removal from the ingenuous power of
the youth, of its reply or impetuous dialogue; on the other hand, the story of the inner life
approaching the slow essence of wisdom. The two stories are like two rivers in the same river bed.
One flows more and more tired, the other flows deeper and deeper...
I hope future will overcome the long time of negations, when nobody has time to ponder, as
I hope that after so many reproaches and disappointments we will not deviate to a road making us
believe that idealism is foolish and that an illusion refreshing is not necessary. Future should teach
us that a true success means to give sense to life. If we do not search for this sense time will be
wasted and we will never know that the little time lived through values more than the dream of it ...
-Bywhat means can be found the way out of the time in which profit remains the only
purpose of people on quite a large scale?
-Money represents the standard for all the things around us, and the only uncontested
power. It seems to be the sixth sense without which the other five senses cannot be used.
When one has money, then money represent an instrument of freedom, and when looking
for money they become the most faithful instrument of servitude...
From the money standpoint, future should be regarded from the point of resources though
man is born and dies illusionless. The last word in any business is a figure.

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 Today, we find the mediocrity arrogance and the subcultural phenomenon gradually induced.
In our world that reached the status of the mature poverty we often hear or read "play and win",
"look and win, "call... and win", "participate in our contest and win", "buy... and win" etc. or that
many things are free of charge, apparently! I don’t know what to think, but in capitalism they work
hard to earn, and "free of charge" belongs to a dead language. Confused by uncertainty people
storm in front of the mail offices or call from home and mainly from office to knock at the door of
luck in the same useless frenzy...
The verb "to have" turns to be more valuable that "to know" and people get to believe that
there are only values that can be purchased.
The aspirations of the poor are not far from those of the rich and in history, intelligence and
stupidity both access to modernity. The sophomore will always laugh in prosperity, vulgarism is
fashionable, and scruple dies in front of money. History, then, shows that the one spending only own
money does not possess too much imagination...
We cannot say that things have not changed radically in the last years. Furthermore, they
even became a manela songs! Instead of broadcasts with correctly dressed pioneers virtual low
necks and belly dances are present. The once glorifying choirs have been replaced by pathological
pornographic elements, in the name of the freedom of art and vulgarism seduces while promoting
subculture on stage...
TV jokes quickly fall in vulgarity and mediocrity takes a slow offensive with remnant signs.
Haven’t we learnt anything from the former decades of aggressive ideology?
We are our own friends, we are our own enemies, but disaster has never had friends. Now
money makes friends, even the dog would be man’s best friend if it had money...
Evening TV news deliver constantly a full range of reasons for fear chasing our dream, the
increase of the criminal rate suggests that individuals pretending to be human walk among us and
we meet them only when it is too late...
The issues we face become more and more complex; generate paradoxes, confusion,
contradictions and, not the least, a crisis of confidence. Today’s apathy requires trust and
confidence, the emotional binder linking people, but they cannot be inherited or purchased, they
need to be gained...
Poverty makes people crowd to get a public job and position, other individuals managed to
revive characters identified by a party card and by other else...
We should be tolerant, however. A true order can show a never-ending tolerance, with
incorruptible amplitude enabling the free play of the parts. I think there is an ethical interdiction in
the free, though proper, behaviour, where moral force can be strictly observed in a universe where
only the necessary is possible.
The reality around us shows that there is an ever more visible contradiction between the
need of making certain decisions and the democratic procedures based on dialogue. The advantage
of the procedures is the tendency towards consensus, while the disadvantage the time spent.
The rapidity of the evolution leads to the idea that time as a factor has an ethical, intrinsic
value, though nobody can regard human and financial costs as a waste of time. In this context,
solidarity and time ethics lead to the ethics of action, where each individual should feel the
commitment.
But collective ethics depends upon the individual behaviour ethics and the individual
acceptance of a set of ethical behaviours is encouraged and cultivated through the collectivity. We
should not forget that elites easily reconcile, in spite of surface misunderstandings and the public is
not involved, it is only manipulated in debates of the kind. The gap between the elite thinking and
the popular thinking is enormous, and it is the location of distortions and tensions hard to solve...
If careful, we may find that it is no question referring to the coexistence of opposing value

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systems, but of identical values with different interpretation basis. When all is said, the factor
enabling coexistence lies in the capacity of having a dialogue and of communicating...
"Who am I? Where do I go? Why?" – these are everlasting questions, today more stringent
than ever, with an unsatisfying answer especially for the young though freedom is not disputable.
Freedom alone cannot reorganise a state or relaunch economic growth as it cannot be confused with
a manual similarly to the fact that the notion of human rights initiates the democratisation process
but it cannot implement the same...
Great creators - though their destiny - get the intuition of the Faustian pact on which world
relies. But the same thinkers can be the most serious opponents to Faust, when Christian wisdom goes
on asking itself: "why conquering earth and losing soul?" or "Does possession as an idea mean
more than being as an idea?"...
Human confusion is a normal stage in this transition and the ideal of a better world should
not look for humanity by ignoring disagreements or admit the defeated before the battle is over.
- In case you could meet one or more important spirits of the mankind, whom would
you like to have as a partner in a dialogue and in what register or what topics would you
approach ?
- I would be fascinated to have an imaginary dialogue with Leonardo da Vinci. I could talk
about virtually everything with him. Why? Because he understood better than others that, besides
time and space, there is another eternal and infinite dimension, which is imagination. Those
appreciating his creation understand that finally his main creation is the way in which he wasted
himself to prove, like no one else, that one can dream of the absolute in a dying body.
Leonardo understood the value of experience before Bacon, and the man, who learnt before
Copernicus that the earth is a star, and who was a forerunner for all fields, thought probably that the
universe is infinite and of the mysteries on the earth.
Leonardo’s eyes watching from the rectangles of some frames in Amboise – in a place whose
light reminds of Tuscany – is pensive and maybe sad a little. But the same eyes say that due to
people like Leonardo wisdom found not only the inferno, but the smile too...
- What other activities make you feel intellectually satisfied and who is Radu
Munteanu beyond his professional life?
- I am attracted to books, literature and writing, and beyond my profession, I think I am an
ordinary person.
- If you started again, what wouldn’t you repeat as a professional and what didn’t you
do though you wanted it very much?
- I love people. A doctor!
-What does your soul lack most? What worries you most? What questions do you most
often put to you? Are you a happy man?
-Life is not only a gift to be happy; it is a gift to deserve to be happy. Those who are happy
have found that miracles are always commonplace that fit into a shell on a beach where the
sea is locked and the silent story of the setting days...
The more we bury in our thoughts, the more we perceive the incapacity if knowing our
depths while trying to find our way where the common and dull are natural and inborn. .That is why
we smash our head on the thornful threshold masterly hidden in beauty and only then we understand
that, in fact, human beauty is also human illusion. Sometimes I lack illusions...
- What is the role of the "Copernican" information revolution in the social global space
and in the technological civilisation of the third millennium?
- We live in a changing world that blends together real and virtual technology, where the

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spirit independence paradigm overcoming lead to innovation and the value of innovation stands has
more significance than tradition. In this context, innovation is encouraged though detrimental to
success, supporting the idea that it is wrong to err, but it is even worse not to try when afraid of
making errors. Through the Internet, we got into a cyber world, the synergies of the digital
revolution mix together word, image and sound as we wish, in a communication where the role of
the bit is primary. Spoken language is the expression of the spirit, a product of the organic impulse
to educated, and the element that embodies the life of the thought. The more informed people
become, the more the language becomes topic for technical investigation and to help language
survive it should be utilised in electronic information systems. When I state this, I think of the
commutational linguistic resources, automated translation, speech technology and generation,
automated word recognition, linguistic engineering, instruments of lexical acquisition, unifying
grammars or morphological mistakes identification. It is evident that the new technologies have
multiplied the meaning of mass-media; what consequences are there to it? First, it was found out
that information is a commodity that can bring important return at sale and spreading. Not far back
in time, information value used to be associated to various parameters, mainly to truth or used to be
designed as an instrument for political fight.
Many things have changed today because the price of information depends upon the demand
and the interest arisen. Sale is primordial today. A piece of information is appreciated as valueless if
it does not concern the large public, the finding of the mercantile aspect in the information
triggering the flow of the capital to the mass media. That is why business men do not lead and
manage publishing houses and press companies. After becoming goods, information moved away
from the traditional checking made for authentic, market laws started governing it and this can be
seen in the newspapers or on the TV screens. But this mass-media metamorphosis drives us to
another question: how is world understood? The question is difficult, because mass media is
consumed and digested easier than books. Another danger lies in that television turned into a source
for history with its own interpretation of events and civilisation becomes more and more dependent
on the broadcast version of the history. On the other side, the target of the mass-media aggressive
actions is the common person, who forgets that censure is typical of dictatorship, while
manipulation of democracy. In this context, information is selected according to the principle "the
more the blood, the better the sale and we all feel this impact. Obviously, we are only at the
beginning of this revolution of the media, so can still remain optimistic because the phenomenon is
too recent to have created antibodies for the shortcomings generated. Many professionals that
motivate their contemporaries work in this field to reveal the hopes and dangers the world hides in
front of us.
The anonymous surfer of the Internet is blinded by the sun of the virtual world and the
newspaper sites range among the cyberspace attractions. More than 5,000 publications produced by
various types of experts can be read every day. The revolution we witness is overwhelming in which
the syntagma "you communicate, hence you live" pushes you to the computer, fax, mail,
electronics or phone or mobile phone, and the information technologies tend to get more and more
an ideological shade of meaning. Judging "coolly", a phrase like "the entire mankind is connected to
the information flow" is already obsolete.
Now, the Internet and its virtual world has changed mentality through the instantaneous and
through direct communication, and school and university education become more and more
dependent to the virtual environment. Future and a new form of culture will be joined together,
future will be linked to a new form of education like an art branch that makes awareness pass
through the unaware in a custom opposite to tradition and inertia, wisdom being linked to
knowledge and choice of things wished for or loathed.
-Iseducation a way to ... prosperity? What mentality and practical redoutes must be
conquered in work and creation?
-Education in itself is a nobless that distinguishes people, the most difficult problem given to
man to solve, a culture of the character and a subtle cover under which the true nature occurs

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 in silence. This is a human occupation in permanent improvement. To improve means to put
a price on time in daily work. Of course, work is the only thing we never regret and the
consolation that promises more than gives. A neologism - "teleworking" – gains more and
more ground in human activity. The computer and communication means enabled the
flexible employment and some "nomad" workers, forming a telecommunity of specialists, in
the virtual sense of the word. Working from "home" was first promoted by Jack Nilles who
introduced the notion of "telecommuter" – found in the science fiction The Telecommuters
(1987) of the well known avant-garde writer Francis Kinsman, but in Europe, the term
"teleworker" is more encouraged by the European Commission. Teleworking is a feature of
the information society with many economic, social, psychological implications, naturally
promoting the dimming of the state borders. Such a concept also encourages flexible
working, far off the company premises. Other concentration phenomena are witnessed
today, as it is shown in the experience of the companies American Express and Dell, who
integrated teleworkers coming from a large geographical area in area centres. Of course,
activity virtual commuting can be dictated by fiscal facilities too, given by offshore, the
professional being a "nomad" worker as work can be performed from any point where the
Internet is available.
It is possible to see area telecentres for those who will not work at home or in company.
They will belong to some virtual telecommunications, with tip "front office" and "back office"
access type, generating modifications in all fields of activity. The concentration of working teams
that are globally dispersed can lead to the advantage of a "24 hour work" as the mean-time zone
displaces. Virtual plants, companies and cities will become reality in the 3-5 years.
From another point of view, Open Electronic Networking will generate pressure upon
buildings and quality of services, in the context of a network virtual economy where telecommerce
will be the essential tool.
The advantages of the "network economy" influence companies and individuals alike.
Productivity will increase when the staff is table and led flexibly, when the balance between family
and job will gain more by humanisation and the community activity will evolve in form and
content. And not the least "teleworking" will affect road, air traffic and pollution, providing more
and more employment opportunities even to the disabled.
In spite of the fact that the perspective is optimistic, the reality also brings to life stringent
phenomena, such as authentification and harmonisation of the legislation among countries, the
security of payments. Considering such an aspect, a document of the European Community
produced in 1993, on the economic relaunching strategy points out that between 1994 and 1999, 67
billion Euros have been allotted to develop the continental telecommunications network, of which 3
billion for "teleworking".
The new information technology, especially the Internet, developed amply. An impressive
number of operational websites and an increasing number of interactive computer-based services
characterises our times.
We wonder whether our society is ready for the information epoch that erases the difference
between "homo faber" and "homo sapiens". A response can be found in the large number of
Romanian graduates activating in American and European universities or important computer and
telecommunications companies: IBM, Texas Instruments, Microsoft, National Instruments,
Motorola, Northern Telecom, ITT Matra, Siemens, Ericsson etc.
Another relevant indicator of the information society is the "consumption" of electronics per
capita, with peaks in Japan and the USA.
Only future can show us the real face of all these. But sometimes, future seems to a legend
sent by parents to children as a family memory warning that absolute certainty is the attribute of
uneducated minds. Anyway, truth and similarly future, is a torch lighting in the fog, not dissipating
it but teaching us that without darkness the light would be useless...

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 -What would you include in an imaginary discourse on memory and power, at the
crossroads of hope and oblivion?
-Memory, a book with moving letters, teaches us what we should not forget, reminding that on
the frontispiece of the Library of Alexandria they wrote "the hospital of the spirit". Surely, the
library is the place of a world that is not reached by death and the book is the flame lighting
the ways of those who do not look where they step though they know where they want to
reach...
The human society resembles a vault of rocks tied together that could fall apart if they did
not support one another and whose key is authority. Society, surely, represents sets of relations
based on a community of interests as it also represents the field of permanent changes and of the
fight between existence and supremacy. In this environment, the human is the dream of a shadow
and the shadow of a dream as well as the king of the vertical line that is seen as an extension of the
earth's radius, while the rest of the animals are only tangent lines...
When people began living together, the boss appeared, i.e. a person who needs others. Then
governing arises as the will of all, achieved by one or more persons, in the virtue of commonly
agreed rules or laws. This phenomenon is the Cinderella of truth and governing is an activity of the
reason and smartness that requires the capacity to choose and to resist and to displease.
Power is a property of the matter and its keeping by those who are endowed or its length
means going on with something not existing anymore.
When concerned with people and world around, you have to understand that in fact
dissatisfaction is the origin of all facts and deeds. Its effects are mistakeless as part of the world
would like to possess more than they do now, and another part at the thought of possibly losing
what was earned. Then, power comes in. The power of mastering over the others has become an
attribute for which people can do anything to preserve it. The fight for power takes all forms and
faces. Diverse, though monotonous, similar to days passing on, the appetite for power has been
often confused with the life of those who atone for the origin sin they cannot get rid of.
That is why, along its history, mankind has always been ready to fight and life has been a
permanent concert of the disharmonies. Caught in the everyday chores, the individual aware of
his/inability does not necessarily become able, but he/she makes a step forward. Hence, the chair
helps man appreciate standing. But we sit differently on a chair when we feel it could lose ground.
Sometimes sitting on a chair is an obligation that may not be ever paid for. As you want to pay for it
the duty increases. And when the world is turned upside down, the fools seem to be wise.
Failure does not necessarily mean loss, but there are many views that cannot be defended
barehanded and with nothing in your wallet. The impossible is a temporary form of the possible.
In general, the power symbols are bad animals: lions, dragons, vultures, griffins. A large
number epitomises prestige, but we need only some, the best, who are not always loved by the mob.
People become rich when they become aware of their own errors. That is, at the beginning of the
new century and millennium the technological solution proved to be overestimated, while the
cultural and value solution – underestimated. Anyway, history has taught us that wickedness cannot
be defeated in time or diluted by good deeds. The Science on the Evil is as old as the thinking man
and the desire of fighting it is as old as religion.
A malicious person could easily demolish these thoughts. Someone malignant resembles a
fly on a human body stopping only at wounds. .The evil is the pleasure of those who cannot do
good and the only thing that lasts. It can be the atavism of an aged ideal similar to dirty water that
can purify only flowing. It is surely a melancholy avoiding a serene forehead; a good man forgets
the harm, while a bad person forgets the good made. Both the good and the bad think that all the
people resemble to them.
- Your aphorisms bear the stamp of sententiousness, are well-known and subduing.
How does Radu Munteanu see deep life through the filters of wisdom? What remnant

15
standard do you apply to life, when written with capital "L"?
- When in evil chance, people are overcome by depression. The same happens when luck
comes in surplus. Good and evil have the same spring, but they flow in different river beds and both
luck and bad luck pay debts quite soon. Bad luck does not need explanations. Not even comments.
It is clear and precise and unmistakable. In life, good and bad luck are brothers that get along as
brothers!
Life is beautiful because it has not only light but also shadows from the very beginning of
childhood. Fairy tales tell that God's face is always different. It takes 1000 faces a day and in this
way there is only one real immortality that is looked for in what dies away. This is we realize that
there are treasures in our souls, common symbols becoming coat-of-arms symbols in a world where
the dream, like the fairy tale, permanently polishes it. Similar to time...
Self contentment is the most beautiful homage we can offer to ourselves. The rest are costly,
but the difference between the image in the mirror and the image in the last year's picture is there.
We do not look at ourselves to get to know us, but to admire ourselves.
Nobody excuses for one's thoughts. It is not customarily. Some say it is useless; most do not
utter a word and may even swallow a drink. However, nobody climbed the stairs of life from a pub.
If interest is the symptom of need, Louis the 15th named Noah his successor, following the
slogan "Be what it would be!" Though one cannot look at the skies when having a pebble in the
shoes, people learning will know quite well when to keep silent. That is why Helen was Paris's
dream and Saint Helen was Napoleon's drama. Quite often a right cause is supported by crooked
pylons, but nothing lasts more than the temporary things that we make without shame. In fact,
shame is a question of training.
Sometimes, intelligence makes appeal to pretexts in order to avoid the demands of instinct
and a distant masque is almost always a warning that the person behind harms itself according to its
needs.
If a little more careful, we may notice the love for people will always win and unexpected
events are a proof of it from time to time. Then, as time passes, we notice that friendship exists only
among honest people and a certain friend will be found in uncertain circumstances. Who looks for a
defectless friend will remain alone. This world is not eternal, nor stable, so that it is a surprise to see
friends changing when our luck changes.
As I spent all my life in school among students, I realised extremely well that youth is the
time of big, though wonderful mistakes, and that dreams can be similar, though not identical. I also
understood that gift means one should make an attempt to get it and that the kind-hearted person's
role is difficult to play because the actor must be very gifted to do so.
Someone used to tell me that those who do not write have the advantage of not being
compromised. It is possible, as writing means life like ink pouring out like the resin in the fir. This
natural thing is not a reason to give up even if one does not understand that writing is soul treason.
Writing, however, is a way of putting thought sin order and consequently, it is almost sure that part
of ideas become obsolete or anachronic for some and for you as well. If the laws of melancholy
push us to confession, then we may realise that life cannot be discovered from books, though books
help us understand it. The new millennium becomes again a method of the would-be and the
modern image of the biblical millennium gives birth to hope for a better world and to nightmares
related to its end.
Even if time goes by and the number of our years sums up, not many things change for our
nature, and we go on wasting our imagination with the thoughtlessness of the spirits besieged by too
many a question, feeling the hear beats and the reason tired earlier than heart. If we let ourselves
swallowed up by the problems in our lives, then we forget that all around us is the product of
alternation. Everything appears and disappears, is born or dies. Success and failure intertwine, they
come when time is time, it is useless to enforce or avoid them as they a part of the just measure of

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the natural phenomena.

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