Articles by José Ferreirós

The Norwegian mathematician Thoralf Skolem (1887-1963) is not a well-known figure, despite the number and importance of his contributions. He was the author of some 180 articles on diophantine equations, group theory, lattice theory, combinatorics […]

I apologize for bringing bad news. I hope no one wants to kill me. We all know that Thales was ‘the father’ of mathematical knowledge, the great origin of the ‘Greek miracle’ in geometry and […]

“Adversity makes us wiser; prosperity destroys our appreciation of what is fair.” – Seneca. “We are in a time of crisis”: a phrase that is repeated, perhaps by every human generation. Who are we? Who […]

In mid-January 1922, Hermann Weyl arrived in Malaga for a long stay in our country. The initiative had come from Esteban Terradas, an active Catalan scientist-engineer, who invited him to give a course of eight […]

Sofia Kovalevskaya (whose name is sometimes written as Sonia Kovalevsky, due to the vagaries of transcription) said that “it is impossible to be a mathematician without also having the soul of a poet”. A very […]

We are used to scientists being important and even popular figures. What successful scientist does not try to publish a popular science book? Who does not seek to add to scientific success the bonus of […]

What is really more important: to propose a new method, or to make great use of it? To introduce a new concept that will be a keystone, or to develop it to the point of […]

One of the most famous anecdotes about mathematics tells us that Hippasus of Metapontion (a Greek colony in the gulf of Tarentum, at the end of the peninsula that is now Italy) was thrown into […]