Person: Sadosky, Manuel
Manuel Sadosky is known today as the 'Father of computing in Argentina'. In addition he promoted applied mathematics, supported science, education and scientific popularisation. He lived though difficult political times and was forced to leave Argentina on several occasions.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Natalio Sadosky had arrived in Argentina in 1905 with his wife, who was illiterate.
- It was in this system that Manuel received his primary education.
- Sadosky graduated from the Mariano Acosta in 1931 with a qualification to be a school teacher.
- This qualification was not sufficient to allow him to even sit the entrance examinations for the University of Buenos Aires so Sadosky studied to take the equivalent for his bachelor's degree at the Colegio Nacional de Adrogué.
- When Sadosky began his studies at the University of Buenos Aires his intention was to study for an engineering degree.
- The mathematics staff in the University of Buenos Aires when Sadosky was a student consisted of Julio Rey Pastor, the only paid professor, and Juan Carlos Vignaux, who held an honorary position.
- Cora Ratto was in the same class as Sadosky and Yanny Frenkel was also a student.
- During his time as an undergraduate, Sadosky was appointed for the three years 1933-35 as an honorary assistant in Analytic and Projective Geometry.
- Cora and Manuel shared a long and happy marriage.
- Juan Carlos Vignaux, who taught Sadosky, was a founder member of the Argentine Association.
- He gave courses on mathematics and engineering at the University of Barcelona and he became Sadosky's Ph.D. advisor when he began research in 1937.
- After the award of his bachelor's degree, Sadosky had to decide either to find a job or to undertake research for his doctorate.
- The director of the Observatory was the newly arrived Esteban Terradas so Sadosky was able to work there and also undertake research for his Ph.D. at the University of Buenos Aires with Terradas as his thesis advisor.
- Although there were no computing facilities at the time, in his thesis Sadosky studied the method of finite differences, the procedures of Ritz and Galerkin, and the Poisson integral, all topics which would become important in numerical analysis courses when computers become available.
- Sadosky managed to work at the Radiotechnical Institute of the University of Buenos Aires from 1949 to 1952.
- In the period before 1956 Sadosky had been collaborating with Rebeca Cherep de Guber writing the book Elementos de cálculo diferencial e integral Ⓣ(Elements of differential and integral calculus) which was published in 1956.
- At the University of Buenos Aires, Sadosky was appointed Acting Professor of Mathematical Analysis in the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences and Acting Professor of Special Mathematics in the Faculty of Engineering.
- A competition was held for a full professorship in the Faculty of Engineering and Sadosky was appointed on 9 May 1957.
- Sadosky is best known today as the 'Father of computing in Argentina'.
- A small team began work with the new computer led by Manuel Sadosky.
- The team included Sadosky's collaborator Rebeca Guber and Cecilia Berdichevsky.
- The Computational Institute, directed by Sadosky, was set up in 1961 and began operating the new computer on 15 May in that year.
- Manuel Sadosky was at a Board of Directors meeting on the night of 29 July when the police arrived at the Faculty and began to attack and arrest teachers, graduates and students in what became known as the 'Night of the Long Batons'.
- Sadosky was keen that those staff fleeing Argentina should remain in South America.
- Along with the engineer Juan Chamero, the mathematician Rebeca Cherep de Guber and the chemist David Jacovkis he created the company called Asesores Ciencia Técnicos S.A. Other members of the Computational Institute worked for the company and in 1970 Sadosky and the other two founders sold the company to some of those workers.
- Sadosky spent part of his time in Buenos Aires and part in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he worked for the Computing Centre of the Universidad de la República.
- Tomás Eloy Martínez wrote the first drafts of his book 'La novela de Perón' there, as indicated in the acknowledgments, and it was there that Raúl Alfonsín, passing through the city, met Sadosky through the mediation of the exiled radical leader Adolfo Gass.
- A mutual sympathy arose immediately between Alfonsín and Sadosky that lasted until the end of Sadosky's life.
- There Sadosky was a major player in the creation of the Museum of Science.
- Ratto de Sadosky died in Barcelona in January 1981.
- Sadosky had returned to Argentina at the beginning of 1983 and worked to support the candidacy of Alfonsín for the presidency.
- Sadosky was put in charge of Science and Technology within the Centro de Participación Política.
- Two documents by Sadosky arising from this meeting were published in Ciencia, Tecnología y Desarrollo Ⓣ(Science, technology and development).
- After Raúl Alfonsín became President, he appointed Sadosky as Secretary of Science and Technology of the Nation, a role he continued to hold until July 1989.
- Sadosky was awarded many honours.
- The book Honoris causa: El Legado De Manuel Sadosky Ⓣ(Honoris causa: The legacy of Manuel Sadosky) was planned to celebrate Sadosky's 90th birthday and published in 2005.
- The centenary of his birth was marked with the publication of the book Manuel Sadosky: El sabio de la tribu Ⓣ(Manuel Sadosky: The wise man of the tribe) (2014).
Born 13 April 1914, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Died 18 June 2005, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
View full biography at MacTutor
Tags relevant for this person:
Origin Argentina
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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
