Brazilian Academy of Sciences mourns the death of Jacob Palis

7/5/2025

The death of mathematician Jacob Palis, former director-general of IMPA and former president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), was announced by the current president of the Academy, Helena Nader, during the ABC Magna Meeting at the Museum of Tomorrow on Wednesday (7). “We have received news of the departure of another great friend, our great president, our comrade Jacob Palis,” announced Helena, as she asked for a minute’s silence in the auditorium.

“Jacob Palis will be greatly missed by Brazil for everything he did for education, science, technology and democracy. Jacob was a fighter for the Constitution, for the right to education, for the right to free open science, for free thinking. The Brazilian Academy of Sciences is in mourning,” added Helena.

Jacob was president of the Academy from 2007 to 2016 and advocated collaboration between research institutions. “What he did for mathematics in Brazil is beyond words. Another thing I admired about Jacob was his partnership. He was president of the ABC and I was vice-president of the SBPC [Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science], then president. We were partners, one complementing the other in our activities. What I learned from him will be with him for the rest of my life. Jacob was always there,” said Helena.

Helena also recalled Albert Einstein’s visit to Brazil in May 1925, which took place a hundred years ago. “Jacob died on the day we were celebrating the centenary of Albert Einstein’s lecture at the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and the impact of that lecture on Brazilian science. It’s a date that will be remembered, they are two icons.”

On the same date, in Brazil, the scientist wrote the only document in which he compared his ideas about the photon and the theory that Bohr, Kramers and Slater defended at the time, about the wave nature of light radiation, which did not require the concept of a photon. The Portuguese version of the text became the first article in the Revista da Academia Brasileira de Ciências published in 1926.

The ABC Magna Meeting will take place at the Museum of Tomorrow in downtown Rio de Janeiro on May 6, 7 and 8. With the theme “Amazonia Now: No Time to Lose”, the meeting brings together researchers and experts on Amazon-related issues from a wide range of points of view.

Read more: Mathematician Jacob Palis, giant of Brazilian science, dies
See also: Death note for Professor Jacob Palis