Francisco Gomes Teixeira

Francisco Gomes Teixeira (28 January 1851, São Cosmado, Armamar – 8 February 1933, Porto) was a Portuguese mathematician and historian of mathematics.

Francisco Gomes Teixeira, ca. 1899

Biography

FRANCISCO GOMES TEIXEIRA completed his course of study in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Coimbra in 1874, and was given the degree of doctor the following year, with a thesis on integration of second order partial differential equations. In 1876 he was accepted as a member of the faculty, after presenting a paper on the use of non-orthogonal systems of axes in analytic mechanics. Having observed that papers by Portuguese mathematicians were often ignored (and sometimes the results were independently discovered abroad) because there was no adequate means to make them known, GOMES TEIXEIRA founded the Jornal de Sciencias Mathematicas e Astronomicas (Journal of Mathematical Sciences and Astronomy) in 1877, which turned out to be the most important Portuguese mathematics journal of the 19th century.[1]

In 1876 he became a corresponding member of the Academia Real das Ciências de Lisboa.

He published over 140 articles in prestigious international scientific journals. Before the year 1890 most of his publications were on mathematical analysis but from 1890 onwards most were on geometry.[1][2] He was named the third astronomer of the Observatório Astronómico de Lisboa in 1878, but only held this positions for about four months before returning to the University of Coimbra.

He was elected a parliamentary deputy by the Partido Regenerador in 1879 and participated in sessions of Parliament for that year and also in 1883 and 1884. In November 1879 he was put in charge of the University of Coimbra's chair of mathematical analysis and in February 1880 was formally appointed to this professorial chair.

In 1884 Gomes Teixeira was appointed to the chair of differential and integral calculus of the Academia Politécnica do Porto. In 1905 the Jornal de Sciencias Mathematicas e Astronomicas (founded by Gomes in 1877) was integrated into the newly created Anais Scientificos da Academia Politécnica do Porto.

His Tratado de las Curvas Especiales Notables won an award in 1899 from the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences. A 3-volume French translation (with additions) was published in 1908 and 1909 as Traité des Courbes Spéciales Remarquables Planes et Gauches. He received in 1917 the prix Binoux d'histoire des sciences from the French Academy of Sciences.

Gomes Teixeira received honorary doctorates from the University of Madrid and the University of Toulouse. In 1911 at the newly formed University of Porto he became the first rector, retiring in 1917.

His body is entombed in the Igreja Matriz de São Cosmado. The tomb consists of a granite sarcophagus with the following inscription:

  • SERAPHICO FRANCISCO ASSISIENSI
  •                            atque
  •    DIVO ANTONIO OLYSIPPONENSI
  •          hoc monumentum erexit
  •    FRANCISCUS GOMES TEIXEIRA
  •                    qui hi jacet.[3]

(Divo Antonio is Latin for St. Anthony. Olissipóna was the ancient name for Lisbon. Gomes Teixeira wrote a 1931 book Santo António de Lisboa (história, tradição e lenda) and a 1926 book Santuários de montahna (impressões de viagens.)

Eponymous tributes
plaque commemorating Gomes Teixeira in Porto's Praça de Gomes Teixeira (where the rector's residence was located)

Selected publications
  • Integração das equações às derivadas parciaes de segunda ordem. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade. 1875.
  • Corso de analyse infinitesmal. vols. 1–3. Porto; 1892–1896[4]
  • Tratado de las Curvas Especiales Notables. Madrid: Imprenta de la "Gaceta de Madrid". 1905.[5]
  • Traité des Courbes Spéciales Remarquables Planes et Gauches. Tome I. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade. 1908.; Tome II. 1909.; Tome III. 1909.. translated into French from the Spanish version but with revisions and extensive additions. Re-published in the Obras sobre Matemática, volumes IV, V et VII, 1908–1915; Chelsea Publishing Co, New York, 1971; Éditions Jacques Gabay, Paris, 1995.
  • Obras sobre Matemática. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade., vol. I, 1904; vol. II, 1906; vol. III, 1906; vol. IV, 1908; vol. V, 1909; vol. VI, 1912; vol. VII, 1915.
  • Sur les Problèmes célèbres de la Géométrie élémentaire non résolubles avec la Règle et le Compas. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade. 1915.[6]
  • Panegíricos e conferências. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade. 1925.
  • História das matemáticas em Portugal. Lisboa: Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. 1934.
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References
  1. Dauben, Joseph W.; Scriba, Christoph J., eds. (2002). Writing the History of Mathematics: Its Historical Development. p. 539.
  2. There are almost 300 publications by Gomes. For an extensive list of these publications consult the following: VILHENA, Henrique de, O Professor Doutor Francisco Gomes Teixeira (Elogio, Notas, Notas de Biografia, Bibliografia, Documentos), Lisboa, 1935.
  3. Francisco Gomes Teixeira - o Homem, o Cientista, o Pédagogo. 2012. p. 39.
  4. Pierpont, James (1899). "Review: Corso de Analyse Infinitesimal by F. Gomes Teixeira" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 5 (10): 483–484. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1899-00639-6.
  5. Sisam, C. H. (1907). "Review: Tratado de las Curvas Especiales Notables by F. Gomes Teixeira" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 13 (5): 249–250. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1907-01459-3.
  6. Archibald, R. C. (1918). "Review: Sur les Problèmes célèbres de la Géométrie élémentaire non résolubles avec la Règle et le Compas by F. Gomes Teixeira" (PDF). Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 24 (4): 207–210. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1918-03044-9.
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