Antonio Monteiro (mathematician)

António Aniceto Monteiro (1907–1980)[1] was a mathematician born in Portuguese Angola who later emigrated to Brazil in 1945 and finally to Argentina in 1950.[2] Monteiro is best known for establishing a school of algebraic logic at Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina. His efforts to promote theoretical computer science research in Argentina were less successful.[1]

After his undergraduate studies at the University of Lisbon (completed in 1930), Monteiro obtained a PhD at Sorbonne in 1936 under the advisement of Maurice Fréchet with a thesis in topology.[2][3] In Portugal Monteiro was the main founder of the journal Portugaliae Mathematica in 1937.[2][3]

In 1945 Monteiro moved to Brazil. There are two versions of why Monteiro left Portugal. The first version is that Monteiro and other Portuguese mathematicians like Ruy Luís Gomes fell foul of Salazar's regime for their political beliefs; some, like Gomes, were imprisoned; others, like Monteiro, were simply denied employment and practically forced to emigrate.[3] The second version, supported by Monteiro's written documents, is that he was tired of the problems created by his fellow scholars that were blocking his attempts to modernize Mathematics in Portuguese universities.[4]

Leopoldo Nachbin was one of Monteiro's Brazilian students. Monteiro's impact on Argentinean mathematics has been compared to that of Julio Rey Pastor.[5]

Monteiro's son, Luis Fernando, studied logic in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. Monteiro's great grandson, Facundo, is currently studying Mathematical Sciences and Physics at the University of Toronto.

  1. ^ a b Monteiro Pioneropublicaciones.dc.uba.ar Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ^ a b c "IX Congreso Dr. Antonio Monteiro". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-08-21.
  3. ^ a b c Victor J. Katz (2000). Using History to Teach Mathematics: An International Perspective. Cambridge University Press. pp. 239–240. ISBN 978-0-88385-163-0.
  4. ^ Buescu, Jorge (2012). Matemática em Portugal, Uma Questão de Educação (in Portuguese). Portugal: Relógio D'Água. p. 18. ISBN 9789898424532.
  5. ^ I. Grattan-Guinness, ed. (2003). Companion Encyclopedia of the History and Philosophy of the Mathematical Sciences. JHU Press. p. 1510. ISBN 978-0-8018-7397-3.