Background
Julio Rey Pastor was born on August 14, 1888, in Logroño, Spain, to José Rey and Julia Pastor.
University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain
Rey Pastor, a poet in his youth, studied science at the University of Zaragoza from 1904 to 1908.
Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Rey Pastor earned his doctorate from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1909, under supervision of Eduardo Torroja Caballé.
Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Rey Pastor studied science at the University of Berlin.
University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany
Rey Pastor studied science at the University of Göttingen.
A postage stamp depicting Julio Rey Pastor
Julio Rey Pastor
Julio Rey Pastor in his later years.
Julio Rey Pastor
Julio Rey Pastor in his later years.
Julio Rey Pastor at his work office.
Julio Rey Pastor
Sociedad Científica Argentina, Argentina
Julio Rey Pastor was a member of the Sociedad Científica Argentina.
educator mathematician scientist author
Julio Rey Pastor was born on August 14, 1888, in Logroño, Spain, to José Rey and Julia Pastor.
Educated at home until the age of twelve, Rey Pastor began studying at his local secondary school, El Instituto Sagasta, in 1900. Pastor, a poet in his youth, studied science at the University of Zaragoza from 1904 to 1908. He graduated with honors in 1908. Rey Pastor earned his doctorate in algebraic geometry from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1909, under supervision of Eduardo Torroja Caballé.
Between 1911 and 1914, he studied at the University of Berlin and the University of Göttingen, under the supervision of Felix Klein. During that period, he also studied under the supervision of Professors Hermann Schwarz, Friedrich Hermann Schottky (father of Walter Schottky, Nobel Prize in Physics in 1911), and Ferdinand Georg Frobenius.
In 1905 Rey Pastor published his first monograph, Sobre los nitmeros consecutivos cuya suma es a la vez cuadrado y cubo perfecto. Appointed professor of mathematical analysis at the University of Oviedo in 1911, Rey Pastor wrote the inaugural address for the academic year 1913-1914, Los matematicos espaholes del siglo XVI (enlarged and reprinted in 1925 and 1934).
In this work he described the deplorable state of science in Spain under the Hapsburgs and, as a consequence, was accused of being unpatriotic. The following year he was a professor at Madrid. A series of trips to Germany resulted in the monograph Estudio geometrico de la polaridad (Madrid, 1912) and his Fundamentos de la geometria proyectiva superior (Madrid, 1916).
In the latter work, Rey Pastor expounded the synthetic geometry of space in n dimensions, introducing concepts of great generality (for example, the definition of the curve) and developing them in all their consequences.
In 1915 Rey Pastor gave a series of lectures at the Institut d’Estudis Catalans in Barcelona on conformal mapping, in which he expounded and developed the work of H. A. Schwarz. Notes from those lectures by Esteban Terrades were published in Catalan.
In 1917 Rey Pastor gave an extension course at the University of Buenos Aires and accepted a contract “to direct the advanced study of the exact sciences” in Argentina, spending half of the school year there and half in Spain.
This first course, given as a visiting lecturer, was an introduction to Klein's Erlangen Programme. In this course, Rey Pastor presented his students with the concept of geometry based on group theory, using methods of establishing invariants of each group, with topological methods being the most general. His second course, given in 1921, was a specialised one for engineering students and included the following topics: functions of a complex variable, conformal mapping, advanced geometry (non-euclidean), mathematical analysis and mathematical methodology. Many of these topics, although commonplace in Europe, were entirely new and revolutionary to Argentinean mathematicians. As a consequence, Rey Pastor succeeded in gaining popularity amongst the students, whilst receiving stern criticism from his contemporary old school professors, who regarded him a foreign usurper.
Rey Pastor founded the Sociedad Matemática Argentino in 1924. In 1927, he was given a permanent appointment at the University of Buenos Aires and held two chairs: one of Mathematical Analysis and the other of Higher Geometry. This was to have a profound and transcending impact on Argentinean mathematics. In 1928, he founded an influential mathematical seminar El semenario Matemático Argentina (similar to the one he had set up in Madrid). The seminar published a bulletin, which contained the first modern research in Argentinean mathematics. He also brought important foreign mathematicians to the university to give short courses, including: Frederigo Enriques (1925), Francesco Severi (1930), Tullio Levi-Civita (1937), Émile Borel (1928) and Jacques Hadamard (1930). In the 1940's, Pastor's best students began gaining international recognition. Amongst them were: Alberto González Domínguez, who became an important quantum physicist; Alberto Calderón, who would become the chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Chicago University; and many more who considerably enhanced the collective teaching capacity of the mathematical community.
In 1931, Rey Pastor published one of his most elegant works on analysis in the Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo, an Italian mathematical journal. It dealt with the study of the method of summation of series. This article by Rey Pastor is framed by a long series of works, begun at the beginning of the twentieth century, on problems of summing series, convergence algorithms, singular integrals and comparative studies of series and integrals. He first presented his work in this area in 1926 in his course on "Series and Integrals" which he gave at Buenos Aires University. The same course, slightly amplified, was repeated in Madrid in 1928. The same year Rey Pastor presented a summary of his ideas in his paper given to the International Congress of Mathematicians at Bologna, which he attended with a large group of his Argentinean students. He continued working on problems related to the theory of summation of divergent series throughout the 1930's and published much of his work in international journals. The themes which Rey Pastor dealt with in this period had considerable influence on the development of Argentinean mathematics.
In 1952 he was expelled from Argentina despite his efforts to remain apolitical. However, he retired with the satisfaction of having initiated the transformation of Argentinean mathematics.
In 1954 he returned to Argentina and joined La Academía de Lengua. The history of mathematics had always interested Rey Pastor and late in his career his interests in historical topics extended to cartography. Of course Spain has a reputation for remarkable cartography so his monograph (written jointly with E Garcia Camarero in 1960) on the history of Spanish cartography was a particularly useful addition to knowledge of the topic.
Examining his textbooks gives us insight into Rey Pastor's ideas concerning teaching of mathematics. In the introduction to Algabraic Analysis, Rey Pastor comments that rather than follow the general tendency of elevating elemental problems to the point of abstraction, it is his goal to simplify complicated questions whilst maintaining a rigorous approach. He adds that all abstract thought requires a pre-existing knowledge base, which many students lack when they arrive at university and, which they expect to gain over the course of their degree. According to Rey Pastor however, it is a didactic mistake and historically absurd to attempt to approach the concepts of analysis in this contrary manner.
Rey Pastor focused mainly on teaching engineering, but he recruited many pure mathematics students to his courses since he regarded the engineering courses on the techniques of calculation good preparation for pure mathematicians. He believed it was important to maintain an understanding of both areas of mathematics and it was this characteristic, panoramic vision of his, which allowed his students to appreciate the profundity of the new concepts he was teaching them. By separating mathematics from its purely technical aspect, he attracted a wide audience on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Julio Rey Pastor was a member of the following organizations: Asociación Española para el Progreso de las Ciencias, Institute Matemático Hispano-Americano, Unión Matemática Argentina (founder, vice-president), Junta Argentina de Historia de las Ciencias (vice-president). He was also a member of the Society Científica Argentina, member of the Asociación Politécnica del Uruguay, and of the Society Científica de México. He was a founder and a member of the Sociedad Matemática Argentino (1924).
Julio Rey Pastor was married to Rita Gutiérrez with whom he had two children: José Avelino and Julia Elena.