Geek of the Week -- Petrarche Poenaru

This week's Geek of the Week is a man who should be very dear to the hearts of all Ravenclaws. 

Petrarche Poenaru, born in Băneşti, Romania in 1799, had a truly Ravenclaw range of interests.  Over the course of his lifetime, he was a mathematician, engineer, physicist, teacher, politician, agronomist, zootechnician, and inventor (more about this last below!)  Poenaru also studied several languages, including Greek, Latin, French, Italian, English, and, since he was attending school in Vienna at the time, presumably German. He organized the educational system in Romania and founded the Philharmonic Society, Botanical Gardens, and Museum of Antiquities in Bucharest.

This amazing scope of interests might have been enough to label Poenaru as One of Us, but it is his most famous invention that puts him firmly among the denizens of the Tower.  While a student in Paris, Poenaru needed a better tool for taking notes while he was out in the field studying geodesy and surveying. He invented one, and applied for and received a patent for his "never-ending portable pen, which recharges itself with ink." You and I know this invention better as the fountain pen!

With his love of learning (he once wrote to his family that the sweetest pleasure a man can experience is learning), his huge range of interests, and his invention of that most Ravenclaw of writing instruments, the fountain pen, Petrarche Poenaru truly belongs in the pantheon of Geeks of the Week!

Learn more about Petrarche Poenaru:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrache_Poenaru