24/05/2023

Folha: The influence of Cândido Lima Dias on the founding of IMPA

Reproduction of Marcelo Viana's column in Folha de S. Paulo.

The doctoral thesis of mathematician Cândido Lima da Silva Dias was the first in science to be defended (that is, completed) at the then newly created University of São Paulo (USP), according to academic work I have had access to. It was in 1942, at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters, and deals with the theory of analytic functionals, introduced at USP by the Italian Luigi Fantappiè and improved by Silva Dias.

The topic was very active at the time, also featuring the work of José Sebastião e Silva, another pupil of Fantappiè, who played an important role in the education and science scene in Portugal.

Silva Dias was born in Mococa (SP), near the border with Minas Gerais, in 1913. His academic career is intertwined with the early days of mathematical research in Brazil, to which he made important contributions. He was a professor at USP until 1978, when he retired. The following year, he became a professor at the Federal University of São Carlos, where he remained until 1990.

In 1951, he accepted the invitation to be the first director of mathematical research at the newly created National Research Council (CNPq), now the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development. In this role, he played a key part in the creation of the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), the first of several research units founded by CNPq.

The proposal to create a research institute outside the university structure was unusual in Brazil at the time and caused surprise. Silva Dias was tasked with drafting a preliminary project for the new institution, which he presented to CNPq on October 16, 1951.

Inspired by models he knew abroad, such as the Steklov Institute, founded in St. Petersburg (Russia) in 1919, and the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), created in Princeton (United States) in 1930, Silva Dias advocated for the creation of a national institution dedicated to "teaching and scientific research in the field of pure and applied mathematics, as well as the dissemination and elevation of mathematical culture in the country." This remains IMPA's mission today.

Almost a year later, on October 15, 1952, the founding of IMPA was approved by the Deliberative Council of CNPq, led by Admiral Álvaro Alberto, founder and first president of the institution. With the mathematician and astronomer Lélio Gama as director, and only two researchers, Leopoldo Nachbin and Mauricio Peixoto, the new institute was initially housed in two rooms at the headquarters of the Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF), in the Urca neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro.

To read the full text, visit the newspaper's website.