The Brazilian Academy of Sciences mourns the death of Jacob Palis.

The death of mathematician Jacob Palis, former director-general of IMPA and former president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), was announced by the current president of the Academy, Helena Nader, during the ABC Magna Meeting, at the Museum of Tomorrow, this Wednesday (7). “We received the news of the departure of another great friend, our great president, our colleague Jacob Palis,” announced Helena, asking for a minute of silence in the auditorium.

“Jacob Palis will be greatly missed in Brazil for everything he did for education, science, technology, and democracy. Jacob was a fighter for the Constitution, for the right to education, for the right to free and open science, for free thought. The Brazilian Academy of Sciences is in mourning,” added Helena.

Jacob was president of the Academy from 2007 to 2016 and championed collaboration between research institutions. “What he did for mathematics in Brazil is beyond words. Another thing I admired about Jacob was his partnership. He was president of the ABC [Brazilian Academy of Sciences] and I was vice-president of the SBPC [Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science], then president. We were partners, complementing each other in our activities. What I learned from him will stay with me for the rest of my life. Jacob was always present,” said Helena.

Helena also recalled Albert Einstein's visit to Brazil in May 1925, which occurred one hundred years ago. "Jacob died on the day we were celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein's lecture at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the impact of that lecture on Brazilian science. It's a date that will be remembered; they are two icons."

On Brazilian soil, on this same date, the scientist wrote the only document in which he compares his ideas about the photon and the theory that Bohr, Kramers, and Slater defended at the time regarding the wave nature of light radiation, which dispensed with the concept of the photon. The Portuguese version of the text became the first article of the Revista da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (Journal of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences) published in 1926.

The ABC's (Brazilian Academy of Sciences) General Meeting will take place at the Museum of Tomorrow in downtown Rio de Janeiro on May Fridays, 7th, and 8th. With the theme "Amazon Now: No Time to Lose," the meeting brings together researchers and specialists on Amazon-related topics from a wide range of perspectives.