Esteban Terradas i Illa

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".

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 monographies 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 planing 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

* 2399 Terradas Asteroid named in his memory.
* [http://www.locomotoravapor.com/castillaleon.htm Locomotive Esteban Terradas] , at the Railway Museum of Ponferrada (Spain), named in his memory.

External links

* [http://www.aip.org/history/newsletter/spring2000/docpres.htm Esteban Terradas at the American Institute of Physics]

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

* This article draws on material in the corresponding article in the Catalan language Wikipedia. It may also draw on the following websites, none of which are in English.
* [http://www.salleurl.edu/CeCAD/terradas/index.htm Esteban Terradas, A life given to science and technology]
* [http://usuarios.lycos.es/litesus/ Esteban Terradas science in the XX century Spain]
* [http://www.inta.es/ Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial Esteban Terradas]
* [http://www.ub.es/geocrit/sv-13.htm Electricity in Catalonia, a history to be written]
* [http://www.terra.es/personal/flromera/cientifit.htm#t5 Científicos y Técnicos]

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