Calle de Julio Rey Pastor
Julio Rey Pastor (Logroño, 1888 – Buenos Aires, 1962), the mathematician who introduced modern mathematics to Spain and Latin America. Professor at the Central University of Madrid from 1915 and co-founder of the Royal Spanish Mathematical Society in 1911; from 1917 he divided his work between Spain and Argentina. He entered the Royal Spanish Academy in 1954.
Calle de Julio Rey Pastor, in the Niño Jesús neighbourhood, bears the name of the man many regard as the most influential Spanish mathematician of the 20th century, someone who split his life between two continents.
Born in 1888, he earned his doctorate in Madrid in 1909. In 1913 he travelled to Göttingen to train under Felix Klein, and brought the famous Erlangen Program back to Spain. He held the chair of Analysis at the Central University of Madrid from 1915 and founded the Mathematical Laboratory and Seminar, the first Spanish centre devoted to mathematical research outside the university classroom.
From 1917 he crossed the Atlantic to teach in Buenos Aires, and there he put down roots: he founded the Argentine Mathematical Union and trained disciples such as Luis Santaló. In 1954 he achieved an honour rare for a mathematician, admission to the Royal Spanish Academy. He died in Buenos Aires in 1962 and rests in the Recoleta cemetery, among the city’s notables and legends.