José Luis Massera | |
---|---|
![]() José Luis Massera | |
Born | José Luis Massera June 8, 1915 |
Died | September 9, 2002 | (aged 87)
Nationality | Italian |
Occupation(s) | Mathematician, engineer, writer, politician |
Political party | Communist Party of Uruguay |
Spouse(s) | Carmen Garayalde, Marta Valentini |
Children | Ema, José Pedro |
Awards | Premio México de Ciencia y Tecnología (1997) |
José Luis Massera ( Genoa, Italy, June 8, 1915 – Montevideo, September 9, 2002) [1] [2] was a Uruguayan dissident and mathematician who researched the stability of differential equations.
Massera's lemma is named after him. He published over 40 papers during 1940–1970. A militant Communist, he was a political prisoner during 1975–1984. In the 1930s, Julio Rey Pastor gave regular weekend lectures on topology in Montevideo to a group that included Massera. Stimulated by contact with Argentine mathematics, the 1950s saw Uruguay develop a fine school in mathematics, of which Massera was very much a part. [3]
Massera developed new notions of stability, and published several foundational papers and an influential textbook. His results in ( Massera 1950) on periodic differential equations have been heavily cited and are referred to as Massera's theorem. His work in ( Massera 1949) and ( Massera 1956) on the converse to Lyapunov's criterion is also influential, and contain the well known Massera's lemma. His textbook ( Massera & Schäffer 1966) is also heavily cited.
After military intervention in Uruguay in 1973, [3] Massera was arrested on October 22, 1975 in Montevideo and was held in solitary confinement for nearly a year. During this time he was subjected to repeated torture resulting in injuries including a fractured pelvis. In October 1976 he was taken from solitary confinement, tried and convicted for "subversive association", and given a 24-year prison sentence. [4] On June 22, 1979, as a consequence of a proposal put forward by Gaetano Fichera and unanimously approved by the whole Mathematics Faculty Council of the Sapienza University of Rome, [5] he was awarded the laurea honoris causa while still being under conviction. [6] He was released in 1984. [7]
José Luis Massera | |
---|---|
![]() José Luis Massera | |
Born | José Luis Massera June 8, 1915 |
Died | September 9, 2002 | (aged 87)
Nationality | Italian |
Occupation(s) | Mathematician, engineer, writer, politician |
Political party | Communist Party of Uruguay |
Spouse(s) | Carmen Garayalde, Marta Valentini |
Children | Ema, José Pedro |
Awards | Premio México de Ciencia y Tecnología (1997) |
José Luis Massera ( Genoa, Italy, June 8, 1915 – Montevideo, September 9, 2002) [1] [2] was a Uruguayan dissident and mathematician who researched the stability of differential equations.
Massera's lemma is named after him. He published over 40 papers during 1940–1970. A militant Communist, he was a political prisoner during 1975–1984. In the 1930s, Julio Rey Pastor gave regular weekend lectures on topology in Montevideo to a group that included Massera. Stimulated by contact with Argentine mathematics, the 1950s saw Uruguay develop a fine school in mathematics, of which Massera was very much a part. [3]
Massera developed new notions of stability, and published several foundational papers and an influential textbook. His results in ( Massera 1950) on periodic differential equations have been heavily cited and are referred to as Massera's theorem. His work in ( Massera 1949) and ( Massera 1956) on the converse to Lyapunov's criterion is also influential, and contain the well known Massera's lemma. His textbook ( Massera & Schäffer 1966) is also heavily cited.
After military intervention in Uruguay in 1973, [3] Massera was arrested on October 22, 1975 in Montevideo and was held in solitary confinement for nearly a year. During this time he was subjected to repeated torture resulting in injuries including a fractured pelvis. In October 1976 he was taken from solitary confinement, tried and convicted for "subversive association", and given a 24-year prison sentence. [4] On June 22, 1979, as a consequence of a proposal put forward by Gaetano Fichera and unanimously approved by the whole Mathematics Faculty Council of the Sapienza University of Rome, [5] he was awarded the laurea honoris causa while still being under conviction. [6] He was released in 1984. [7]