Janos Gottlieb with his wife and foster-daughter

I’m with my wife [Cleopatra Mociutchi] and my foster-daughter [Mihaela Timofte].

I [Janos Gottlieb] am in the center, my wife is on my left side.

I don’t know for sure when it was taken, but not a long time ago. This is a relatively new photo.

When I moved to Iasi, I made some new acquaintances, and I tried to get close to them.

I was on quite good terms with everybody. However, it is hard not only to establish good relationships, but to find people to work with.

That's how I chanced up my second wife - back then she was someone else's wife.

She was a clever woman, and she always told me useful things. Her advantage was that my way of thinking was mathematical, hers was a physicist's.

Now then, I came here to teach theory of physics, but I was thinking hermetically about physics.

She started to explain me that this wouldn't work like this. And she was right.

She taught me how to write studies in physics. In turn I taught her some mathematics to be able to work together.

And we succeeded. We have several works in common.

She didn't work at the Department of Physics Theory from the beginning, she got there later.

So it was natural that we worked more and more in common. And we could help each other in no matter what problems.

For example she had to keep courses of theory of physics, and it was me who told her what and how she should do.

She told me to watch out what I was doing with physicians. I told you, my way of thinking was much too pervaded with mathematics, and this won't do for physicists.

One has to learn the golden mean, the aurea mediocritas. So we could get along with each other well, much too well, in my opinion.

Because she was having family problems, it was her husband who wanted to divorce her, he even sued for and divorced her.

I predicted to myself what was going to happen. I will tell you why. For her mind was much more brilliant than her husband's.

Women don't bear a less clever man, and men are even less predisposed to live with a cleverer woman.

Of course this marriage broke up. They broke in spring, and in fall I already asked her to marry me.

I didn't let her ponder over it too much. In fall 1962 we got married, and we are together since then, for forty-four years; it is a well-tried relationship.

My wife kept her maiden name. Not in her first marriage, but after she divorced, she took back her maiden name, and we agreed that she would keep it.

We decided so mainly because we were working together, and thus everybody had their own name, otherwise people would confuse us.

Her name is Mociutchi, it's a Polish name. In fact one of her paternal great-grandfathers was Polish, he had fled the Russians; he got to Bessarabia, and got married there.

So this name comes from there. In turn her given name is Cleopatra, friends call her Pati.

Her children have her former husband's name, both of them are called Tomozei.

Of course the boy kept his name, the girl got married and now her name is Timofte after her husband. After we got married, we raised my wife's children together.

Both daughters of my foster-daughter, Mihaela studied law.

The elder, Andrada Timofte works for the European Union, but not as Romania's representative; she got this job following a competition.

The younger, Mara Timofte was employed as an assistant lecturer here, in Iasi; not at the state university, but at the Petre Andrei. Mihaela's brother, Alexandru is in Germany.

They have two children: Alexandru Vlad - he studied to become a dentist in Munich, and he's already working - and Raluca, she's still a student.