17/10/2018

The idea of an institute outside the university met with resistance.

Integrantes do CNPq, na posse do 1º diretor do IMPA, Lélio Gama (6º) / Acervo MAST

Karine Rodrigues

A research institute independent of the university? When the idea was first floated at a meeting of the Deliberative Council of what was then called the National Research Council (CNPq), created in that same year of 1951, it caused some surprise.

There was no consensus, but the seed had been sown, details Circe Mary Silva da Silva, a professor of postgraduate studies in Education at the Federal University of Espírito Santo (Ufes), in studies on the subject. It was up to council member Cândido Lima da Silva Dias (1913-1998), a professor of Mathematics at the University of São Paulo (USP), to prepare a preliminary project for the institution which, about a year later, would come to fruition and become IMPA.

In the report presented on the same date, October 16, but in 1951, Silva Dias, then director of Mathematical Research at CNPq, observed that, in Brazil, pure mathematical research was conducted in three places: the Brazilian Center for Physics Research (CBPF), where Maurício Peixoto and Leopoldo Nachbin, who would become the first two senior researchers at IMPA, were already working; and the Mathematics departments of the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters of USP and the National Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Brazil (RJ).

Interest in the subject extended beyond the borders of the Southeast region, reaching Porto Alegre, Recife, and Belo Horizonte. Silva Dias cherished the desire to have a national institution in the country, something similar to entities he had seen abroad, such as the Steklov Institute (1919, St. Petersburg, Russia) and the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton, USA, 1930).

The mathematician Lélio Gama, who would become the first director of IMPA, defended support for the proposal at the board meeting on September 17, 1952, almost a month before the vote.

“I think the Council should give its full support to this idea, because the planned Institute of Mathematics will provide a clear direction for mathematical research in Brazil. For the past 50 years, scholars and researchers have lived, so to speak, scattered, trying to gather here and there, without, however, achieving a stable and continuous orientation for their work.”

Gama concluded: “There has been a lack of opportunities for work and, above all, cooperation, which only an institute of this nature can ensure. Therefore, I hope that this council can carry out this project, which is of the utmost interest to the mathematical culture of our country.”

On the day of the vote on the IMPA creation project, those who turned up their noses were in the minority. Thus, on October 15, 1952, the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics was created, the first research unit of CNPq. Activities began the following year at CBPF. Official approval came in 1956.

The purpose was clearly defined: "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." IMPA took this mission seriously. Now, as it celebrates 66 years of activity, it stands as one of the most prominent mathematical research institutions in the world.