On the Transmission of RiemannÕs Ideas to Portugal

Department of History, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138HenriqueManualdeFigueiredoisasecondaryfigureinthehistoryofscienceinPortugal.Hisnameisnotrecordedinanyofthemainbiographicalencyclopediasonhiscountry,ininternationalcompilationssuch as the detailed work of May (Bibliography and Research Manual of the History of Mathematics,Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1973), or in studies on the history of science and culture in hiscountry. However, he deserves to be remembered as a unique pioneer in the transmission to Portugalof Riemann’s work, in particular of Riemann surfaces and the theory of algebraic curves. Althoughtrained within the French tradition, and on friendly terms with French scientists till the end of his life,Figueiredo as a young man turned in the direction of the mathematical ideas then being developed inGermany. His life and work are also interesting from the point of view of the study of the transmissionof science to and within peripheral countries and of their choice of foreign models. They suggestthat, far from being a slow process of regular diffusion, the transmission of mathematical ideas fromleading to peripheral mathematical communities is a complex process with selective sharp advances.Figueiredo was a respected mathematician within the structures of his own country, a professor at theUniversity of Coimbra, who held several official positions in his country and represented it at one ofthe first international encounters involving science and technology in which peripheral countries tookan active participation: the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1900.