Person: Abellanas, Pedro
Pedro Abellanas was a Spanish mathematician who worked in differential geometry and wrote many important text-books.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Abellanas joined the Nationalist army led by Franco in which he reached the rank of provisional lieutenant.
- Abellanas quickly discovered the work of van der Waerden, and over the following two years devoured the two volumes of his "Algebra," and his eighteen memoirs on Algebraic Geometry.
- Abellanas was awarded his doctorate, with distinction, on 3 November 1941 for his thesis El problema de la curvatura íntegra en el caso de una variedad geométrica diferencial, de Hopf-Rinow, de dimensión par, completa y admitiendo una descomposición poliédrica que sea una pseudo-variedad cerrada Ⓣ(The problem of the integral curvature in the case of a differential geometrical variety, of Hopf-Rinow, of even dimension, complete and admitting a polyhedral decomposition that is a closed pseudo-manifold.).
- Following the award of his doctorate, in November 1941, Abellanas applied to the Conde de Cartagena Foundation for a scholarship to enable him to spend ten months working with van der Waerden at the University of Leipzig in Germany.
- Although this might appear strange at first sight, one has to realise that Abellanas had fought in the Spanish Civil War on the side of Franco, supported by Germany.
- Abellanas requested permission from the rector of Madrid University to take this period of "extension of studies", as he called it, and his request was granted.
- In 1942 Abellanas was appointed to the chair of Analytical Geometry and Topology at the University of Zaragoza.
- Abellanas attended the International Congress of Mathematicians held at Harvard in early September 1950, where he presented the paper Varietes fondamentales par rapport d'une correspondance algebrique Ⓣ(Fundamental varieties in relation to an algebraic correspondance).
- Let us now look at the books that Abellanas published.
- In 1961 Abellanas published the geometry textbook "Geometría básica" Ⓣ(Basic geometry).
- The other major textbook by Abellanas is Matemática para físicos e ingenieros Ⓣ(Mathematics for physicists and engineers) (1963).
- There are many other contributions that Abellanas made to mathematics in general and, in particular, to the progress of mathematics in Spain.
- Another notable contribution by Abellanas was the organization of the Mathematical Olympiads of the Real Sociedad Matemática Española (The Royal Spanish Mathematical Society).
- But one can hardly speak of a decline in a man like Abellanas, who retained an extraordinary energy throughout his academic career, who directed a dozen theses and maintained the direction of the Department of Algebra of the Universidad Complutense and of the Instituto Jorge Juan the during those years, which we should usually consider as declining.
- Manuel Abellanas has published many papers on enumerative geometry and combinatorics and teaches at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.
- Pedro Abellanas died in Madrid in July 1999 and his funeral took place on 17 September at the church of Santa Rita, Gaztambide Street, Madrid.
Born 20 November 1914, Zaragoza, Spain. Died 29 July 1999, Madrid, Spain.
View full biography at MacTutor
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Origin Spain
Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0! 
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- @J-J-O'Connor
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
