The origin of Serrapilheira

Karine Rodrigues

The mathematician Jacob Palis, emeritus researcher at the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), never imagined that, when inviting the then professor of the Department of Communication at PUC-Rio, João Moreira Salles, to give a lecture at a symposium of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), back in 2010, he was planting a seed that germinated and became the Serrapilheira Institute, launched this Wednesday (22), at IMPA.

But it was from that invitation, João Moreira Salles told the audience, that he became aware of the immense imbalance between what he defined as the seductive power of the Humanities as opposed to the Exact Sciences. At the time, he ended up making a kind of "mea culpa" for the fact that he, as a documentary filmmaker, contributed to this disparity.

In an essay stemming from his participation in an event at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, titled “A Documentary Filmmaker Addresses Scientists,” and published in Folha de São Paulo, João discussed, for example, the distance between professionals in the two fields, and, after citing an episode recounted by the English physicist and writer C.P. Snow, wrote: “I don’t know if anyone has ever spoken to mathematicians again. I hope so, despite the evidence to the contrary. It would be a waste, because mathematics, beyond its uses, is guided by an aesthetic component, by a concept of beauty and elegance that most people are unaware of. What motivates great mathematicians and great artists, I suspect, is a very similar feeling of synthesis and order. The two groups would have much to say to each other, but, as far as I know, they hardly speak to each other.”

The documentary filmmaker's testimony resonated, and from then on, João recalled, he began to think about creating Serrapilheira, the first private institution to promote Brazilian science. The idea, he said, gained more momentum after reading an interview with Jacob himself, in which he said he had a mathematician grandson – whom the filmmaker later discovered was an "academic grandson," Artur Avila, an extraordinary researcher at IMPA who, in 2014, would become the first Brazilian to win the Fields Medal, considered the Nobel Prize of Mathematics. As editor of Piauí magazine, João wanted to write a profile of Artur and was astonished to discover that the publication's journalists were unfamiliar with IMPA.

“I told the journalists that Artur would be a kind of stepping stone to reach IMPA, which I knew was an institution of excellence, but nobody in the Piauí newsroom knew. IMPA was 1.5 or 2 km from the newsroom, and it was a shock to understand that an institution as important as IMPA, with services rendered to the country, was unknown to the best of Brazilian journalism. These things came together and, in 2014, I initiated the process (of creating the Serrapilheira Institute), which is the path you saw here. This is a good reason for this event to be happening here at IMPA, because the idea, in a way, arose stimulated by a request from Jacob.”

In the audience, Jacob Palis was moved: "Thank you very much for your generosity, but enthusiasm was never lacking." To which João replied: "You helped me a lot."