Esteban Terradas i Illa
(born Barcelona
, 15 September 1883; died Madrid
, 9 May 1950) was a Spanish mathematician, scientist and engineer. He researched and taught widely in the
fields of mathematics and the physical sciences, working not only in his
native Catalonia
, but also in the rest of Spain
and in
South America. He was also
active as a consultant in the Spanish
telephone and
railway
industries.
He held two
doctorates (in mathematics and
physics) on 1904, as well as two degrees in
engineering. He was
professor of
mathematical analysis (teaching
differential equations) and
later of
mathematical physics
at
Barcelona Central
University.
He also taught acoustics, optics, electricity, magnetism
and classical mechanics at the
University of
Barcelona
, teaching mechanics also at the University of Zaragoza, University of
Buenos Aires
and the universities of
La
Plata
(Argentina
) and Montevideo
(Uruguay
). He
was a Member of the
Royal Academy of the
Spanish Language and active in the
Royal
Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences and the
Royal
Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona.
He was granted
honorary doctorates by the
Universities of Buenos Aires, of Santiago de Chile
and of Toulouse
(France
) and
established as an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Medicine
of Barcelona, the Association of Argentine Engineers, and of
the Society of Engineers of Peru
among many
other honours.
He studied
at Charlottenburg
in Berlin
, Barcelona
and Madrid. Known as an exceptional student, entered the
University on 1898, when was only 15 years old. He held
professorships in the universities of Zaragoza, Barcelona and
Madrid, specializing in physical and mathematical sciences and
publishing numerous articles about those subjects. In 1909, while
at the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona, he produced an
important work entitled
Emisión de radiaciones por cuerpos
fijos o en movimiento.
Poster at the exhibition entry in
homage to Terradas at the Escola d'Enginieria i Arquitectura de la
Salle (Barcelona) in year 2004.
His
teaching and pedagogical activity was
also important. He published articles in the "Revista de la
Academia de Ciencias" in Madrid, and in the bulletin of the
Institute of Sciences
of Barcelona. He set up a physics-mathematics
seminar, to which he brought some of the best
regarded scientists of his time. He became a founder member of the
Sciences Section of the
Institute of Catalan Studies in
1911, within the framework of the
Monographic Courses of High
Studies of Exchange promoted by the
Mancomunitat de Catalunya. He also
participated in the
Minerva
Collection, where he published "The
radium". In 1919 set up the
Institute of
Electricity and Applied Mechanics and was its director; he was
also a teacher of the section of
electrotechnics of the
Escola del Treball.
He was interested about
photography,
starting at the time, on the beginning of the 20th century, using
it to illustrate his technical and scientific works as well as his
personal life.
He was fascinated by the theories of
quanta and
relativity, inviting such figures as
Jacques Hadamard) (1921),
Hermann Weyl (1921),
Arnold Sommerfeld (1922),
Tullio Levi-Civita (1922) and
Albert Einstein (1923) to Barcelona.
Einstein's Spanish visit, between 22 and
28
February 1923, was a notable success,
organised by Terradas, the Catalan Government, the
Mancomunitat, and
Rafael
Campalans. Terradas also was the driving force behind a series
of scientific
monographs that were a
compilation of these lectures, his own and the works of others
(including
Julio Palacios,
Julio Rey Pastor and
Jacques Hadamard), printed by the Institute
of Catalan Studies under the title "Courses of Physics and
Mathematics".
On 1918, Terradas was chosen to drive the
Xarxa de
Ferrocarrils Secundaris de Catalunya (Secondary Net of Catalan
Railways), intended to decentralize Catalonia, but was never
completed due to the
dictatorship of
Primo de Rivera being established on
13 september 1923.
He was a technical director of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya
railways, he directed (1923-25) and projected the construction of
the
Transversal
Metropolitan Railway of Barcelona and other Catalan railway
lines.
It is said that the President of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya,
Josep Puig i Cadafalch,
entrusted him a study about the stability of the turn of plain
brick, known as the "
Catalan turn",
which is kept at the archive of the Institute of Catalan
Studies.
From 1940 onwards he worked for the Spanish
Instituto Nacional de
Industria, becoming one of the top consultants of the Spanish
industrial development along the 40s. He specially was involved in
the planning and design of the power plants built by
Endesa by that time.
He
lectured at several universities in South America, teaching in
those of Buenos Aires and Rio de la Plata
(Uruguay) from 1936
to 39. Later he worked at the
Compañía
Telefónica Nacional de España and served as a member of the
Higher Board of
Scientific Research. When a chair of differential equations was
established at Madrid, Terradas won it.
In (1910) he published "Discrete elements of matter and radiation",
"Corrientes marinas" (1941) and, to gain entry to the Royal Academy
of the Spanish Language, the volume "Neologismos, arcanismos in
plàtica de ingenieros" (1946). As an
encyclopedist, he authored several articles in
the
Espasa Encyclopedia,
including those on
Celestial
Mechanics, the
Moon and
relativity.
See also
External links
Books
- Roca Rosell, Antoni: Esteban Terradas
(1883-1950) : ciencia y técnica en la España contemporánea; Antoni
Roca Rosell, José Manuel Sánchez Ron; introduction from Enric
Trillas.- Barcelona : Serbal : INTA, 1990.- 358 pages.
- Esteban Terradas Lecciones sobre Física de
materiales sólidos.- printed by INTA 1943
References
(Spain), named in his memory.
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