Omar Catunda

Omar Catunda (Santos, September 23, 1906 - Salvador, August 12, 1986) was a Brazilian mathematician, teacher and educator. He was one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century in Brazil and helped consolidate mathematics research and teaching.

Biography Catunda was born in 1906, in Santos, and was the tenth child of Thomaz Catunda and Maria Lima Verde Catunda, from Ceará. His father was a doctor and his mother was well educated, particularly interested in classical and romantic French literature. His paternal great-grandfather, Joaquim Catunda, was a Republican senator and a professor of German in Fortaleza.

Catunda studied at the Grupo Escolar Cesário Bastos, at the Liceu Comercial, where he excelled in Portuguese and Mathematics, and at the Escola de Comércio José Bonifácio. In 1922, he went to Rio de Janeiro, where he prepared for the exams at Colégio Pedro II by studying eleven hours a day, with the exception of Latin. Of the subjects studied, he enjoyed studying geometry the most, taking Comberrousse's Geometria Elementar as his textbook.

Under Fantappié's guidance, he began studying the Theory of Analytic Functionals and, between 1938 and 1939, he undertook postgraduate studies on the subject at the University of Rome. The result of this trip was a paper entitled "Un teorema sugl'insiemi che si reconnette alla teoria dei funzionali analitici". After returning to Brazil, he was appointed interim professor of Mathematical and Higher Analysis, replacing Fantappiè, who had returned to Italy in 1939.

Catunda became a professor of Mathematical Analysis after defending his thesis "Sobre os fundamentos da teoria dos funcionais analíticos". He was appointed head of the Mathematics Subsection at USP's Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters, a position he held for many years. In 1942, he presented a paper entitled "Sobre os sistemas de equações de variações totais, em mais de um funcional incógnito". At the same time, Catunda expanded his studies and began to learn about topology using Pavel Alexandrov's text and algebra using Van der Waerden's text. Reflections of this appear in his thesis "Sobre os fundamentos da teoria dos funcionais analíticos", presented in 1944 for the Mathematical Analysis chair at the Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters.

Omar Catunda was one of the main representatives and promoters of the mathematical school established at the University of São Paulo by Fantappiè. He died on August 12, 1986, in Salvador, at the age of 79.

Catunda was a professor to renowned physicists such as Mário Schenberg, Marcelo Damy, Abrahão de Moraes, Jean Meyer and Roberto Salmeron, and mathematicians such as Carlos Benjamin de Lyra, Luiz Henrique Jacy Monteiro and Alexandre Augusto Martins Rodrigues.

Un teorema sugl'insiemi che si reconnette alla teoria dei funzionali analitici (1939); Sui Sistemi di Equazioni alle Variazioni Totali in Più Funzionali Incogniti (1941).

Didactic works Ensino Atualizado da Matemática 2° Ciclo (1971); Curso de Análise Matemática I (1954).