Biography:Emilio Baiada

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Emilio Baiada
Born(1914-01-12)12 January 1914
Tunis, Tunisia
Died14 May 1984(1984-05-14) (aged 70)
Modena, Italy
NationalityItalian
Alma materScuola Normale Superiore
Awards
  • Michel prize of the Scuola Normale Superiore (1937)[1]
  • Merlani prize of the Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna (1940)[2]
  • Golden medal "Benemeriti della Scuola, della Cultura, dell'Arte" (awarded by the President of the Italian Republic) (1976)[3][4]
Scientific career
Fields
Institutions
Doctoral advisorLeonida Tonelli
Other academic advisorsMarston Morse
Doctoral studentsCalogero Vinti[5]

Emilio Baiada (also known as Emilio Bajada);[6] (12 January 1914 – 14 May 1984) was an Italian mathematician, working in mathematical analysis and the calculus of variation.[7]

Education and career

Baiada was born on 12 January 1914 in Tunis. He studied at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he graduated with highest honors in June 1937 along with Leonida Tonelli,[8] with whom he worked as an assistant from 1938 to 1941,[9] when he left for the war.[10] In 1945 he began to teach analysis, theory of functions, calculus and rational mechanics at the Scuola Normale. In 1948 he obtained a degree in Analysis; his Ph.D. thesis was written under the direction of Tonelli and Marston Morse.[11]

In 1949 he went on leave from the University of Pisa and moved first to the University of Cincinnati,[12][13] where he worked with scientists like Otto Szász and Charles Napoleon Moore, and then to Princeton University,[14] where he worked with Morse.[15] In 1952 he obtained the chair of analysis of the University of Palermo, where he taught until 1961 before transferring to the University of Modena.[16] where he re-launched the Institute of Mathematics and developed its Library and Mathematical Seminar.[17]

Work

Institutional work

Baiada was one of the leading forces behind the reprise in mathematical studies in Modena in the postwar period.[18] Teaching mathematical analysis in Modena from 1961,[16] he was director of the Institute of Mathematics of the University from the academic year 1962—63 to the 1966—67:[19] he promoted its 1966 dedication to Giuseppe Vitali,[20] and was also behind the construction of the then new building for the department, which opened officially during the 1974-75 academic year.[21] Moreover he held the direction of the direction of the Atti del Seminario Matematico e Fisico dell'Università di Modena from 1977 up to 1983.[22]

Research activity

He published more than 60 papers on differential equations, Fourier series and the series expansion of orthonormal functions, topology of varieties, real analysis, calculus of variations and the theory of functions.[23]

Teaching activity

In 1961 he went from Palermo to Modena, teaching several mathematical analysis courses up to the year of his death.[24] (Vinti 2007) gives a complete list of Emilio Baiada's doctoral students.

Honors

Baiada won the Michel prize for the best thesis in Pisa,[1] and the 1940 Merlani prize of the Accademia delle Scienze dell'Istituto di Bologna for "contributions on subjects of calculus of variations".[2] During his stay in Palermo, from 1952 to 1961, he was elected corresponding member of the Accademia Nazionale di Scienze, Lettere e Arti di Palermo.[25] In 1967 he was elected corresponding member of the Accademia di Scienze, Lettere e Arti di Modena.[26] On 9 June 1976, he was awarded the Golden medal "Benemeriti della Scuola, della Cultura, dell'Arte" by the President of the Italian Republic.[3][4]

Selected publications

Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 According to (Vinti 1984) and to (Vinti 2007). (Barbieri Taddei) do not give this information.
  2. 2.0 2.1 See (Vinti 1984), (Vinti 2007) and (Barbieri Taddei).
  3. 3.0 3.1 See the list of prize winners at the Presidenza della Repubblica Italiana web site.
  4. 4.0 4.1 See (Vinti 1984) and (Barbieri Taddei).
  5. According to (Vinti 2007).
  6. See for example (Cattelani Degani 2022).
  7. See (Vinti 1984), (Vinti 2007), (Barbieri Taddei).
  8. (Barbieri 1992) reports that his doctoral examination was held on 4 July 1937.
  9. (Barbieri 1992) simply states that Baiada was one Tonelli's pupils, while (Nastasi 1996) reports that Baiada classified first in the 1940 competitive exam for the chair of assistant professor of infinitesimal analysis, followed respectively by Landolino Giuliano and Enzo Martinelli. (Pepe 1987) lists Baiada in the group of Tonelli's pupils doing research work on the calculus of variation, as also (Ricci 1951) does. Moreover, in a letter dated 28 July 1942 and published as (Baiada 1998) Baiada himself informs Tonelli on his current situation and asks if he has received a previously compiled bibliography on operational calculus.
  10. (Barbieri Taddei) reports that it was in 1940 that he was called to arms in the military aviation. Nevertheless, in a letter dated 28 July 1942 (Baiada 1998) Baiada states that he received the official call to arms only about twelve days before.
  11. Emilio Baiada at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  12. See (Bulletin of the AMS 1950), (Vinti 1984), (Vinti 2007).
  13. (Hollcroft 1950) writes that Baiada was elected to membership during the fifty-six Annual Meeting of the American Mathematical Society, on nomination of institutional members, specifically the University of Cincinnati: furthermore he writes that at the Meeting Baiada read the paper "An Isoperimetric Problem for Ship-Bodies" (Hollcroft 1950), presented by C. N. Moore (Hollcroft 1950).
  14. See (Vinti 1984), (Vinti 2007), (Mitchell 1980), (The Institute for Advanced Study 2012). (Mitchell 1980) states he stayed there in the years 1950 and 1951, while (The Institute for Advanced Study 2012) is slightly more precise, saying that he worked at the institute from September 1950 to July 1951: other references are less detailed.
  15. See (Morse Baiada), (Vinti 2007) and (Vinti 1984).
  16. 16.0 16.1 (Vinti 2007), (Cattelani Degani 2022).
  17. (Barbieri 1992) writes that
  18. According to what Silvio Cinquini writes in a letter to Francesco Babieri, published by (Cattelani Degani 2022):—"Cosicché se nei confronti della matematica I meriti di Bajada sono immensi, c'é da soggiungere che Bajada avrebbe potuto fare ancora di più, se l'Università di Modena lo avesse chiamato alcuni anni prima." (Free .
  19. (Cattelani Degani Uccellari).
  20. (Cattelani Degani 2022), (Cattelani Degani Uccellari). Furthermore, according to (Caramagno 2014), in the archive of the Italian Mathematical Union at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Bologna, precisely in the Vitali fonds, two letters written by Emilio Baiada from 1966 to 1968 to the Rector of the University of Modena are conserved. The first one is a request to have the Institute in Modena named after Vitali, while the second one is a request to remedy the omission of Vitali’s name in Carlo Guido Mor’s Storia dell'università di Modena (, several editions).
  21. (Cattelani Degani Uccellari). Moreover (Cattelani Degani 2022) refers that Bajada started complaining to the Rector about the "dilapidated and highly inadequate condition of the institute" already in December 1962, as also Silvio Cinquini does in his letter (Cattelani Degani 2022).
  22. (Cattelani Degani Uccellari).
  23. (Vinti 2007).
  24. See (Cattelani Degani Uccellari) for a complete list.
  25. See (Barbieri Taddei).
  26. See (Vinti 1984), (Vinti 2007), (Barbieri 1992), (Barbieri Taddei). The former references do not report the exact date of his election while the latter, particularly the last one (for obvious reasons) do.

References