Manuel Sadosky (April 13, 1914 – June 18, 2005) was an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, civil servant and author who was born in

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

immigrants who had fled the

pogrom A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of Massacre, massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century Anti-Jewis ...

s in Europe.Jacovkis, Pablo (2015). "MANUEL SADOSKY Y SU IMPACTO EN LA CIENCIA Y EN LA POLÍTICA ARGENTINA" (PDF). Retrieved 2020-05-14.

Biography

Son of a shoemaker, Natalio Sadosky and his wife Maria Steingart of Ekaterinoslav (currently

Dnipro Dnipro is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, with about one million inhabitants. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the Dnieper River, Dnipro River, from which it takes its name. Dnipro is t ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, the family had arrived in Argentina in 1905. Sadosky studied at the ''Mariano Acosta'' teachers school. Noted novelist Julio Cortázar was his classmate there, and remained a longtime friend. Since his childhood he was an ardent supporter of

San Lorenzo de Almagro Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro is an Argentine professional sports club based in the Boedo neighborhood of Buenos Aires. It is best known for its football team, which plays in the Primera División, the first tier of the Argentine foot ...

. He married fellow mathematician and activist Cora Ratto de Sadosky (1912–1981) in 1937. Biographer Pablo Jacovkis has said that Cora, had a "powerful personality

hat A hat is a Headgear, head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorpor ...

was not overshadowed by her husband's." The couple had one child, mathematician Cora Sadosky (1940–2010).

Education

Sadosky graduated as a Doctor in Physics and Mathematics at the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...

in 1940, under supervision of Esteban Terradas. He then moved to the

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosophy of science, philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathemati ...

Institute in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

to pursue postdoctoral studies on a scholarship granted by the French Government. After another year in

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, he returned to Argentina, where he faced complicated employment options because of his opposition to the

Peronist Peronism, also known as justicialism, is an Argentine ideology and movement based on the ideas, doctrine and legacy of Juan Perón (1895–1974). It has been an influential movement in 20th- and 21st-century Argentine politics. Since 1946, Pe ...

regime. After a

coup d'état A coup d'état (; ; ), or simply a coup , is typically an illegal and overt attempt by a military organization or other government elites to unseat an incumbent leadership. A self-coup is said to take place when a leader, having come to powe ...

of 1955 removed President Juan Perón from office, Sadosky took up a position as professor at the University of Buenos Aires, where he was vice-dean of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences from 1957 to 1966.

Computational Institute

In 1960 he was commissioned to develop the ''Computational Institute'' (''Instituto de Cálculo'') of the university, home of ''Clementina,'' a new Ferranti Mercury computer and the first one installed in Argentina for research and education. His staff there included several excellent mathematicians including Cecilia Berdichevsky and Rebeca Cherep de Guber, and both would work closely with him for many years to come. He directed the institute until another coup d'état installed a military dictatorship in 1966, causing him to resign with the rest of the faculty in opposition to government intervention in the hitherto autonomous state universities (the Night of the Long Batons) and flee the country.

In exile

He was later able to return to Argentina, but the

Argentine Anticommunist Alliance The Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (, usually known as Triple A or AAA) was an Argentine Peronist and fascist political paramilitary group operated by a sector of the Federal Police and the Argentine Armed Forces, linked with the anticom ...

death squad A death squad is an armed group whose primary activity is carrying out extrajudicial killings, massacres, or enforced disappearances as part of political repression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or revolutionary terror. Except in rare cases in w ...

threatened to kill him so he fled with his family in 1974. He moved to

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, finding employment in

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

at the Universidad de la República, where he continued publishing, helped to initiate computer studies and introduced the first research computer in that country. In 1974, due to political persecution, Sadosky left Argentina with his family, relocating to

Caracas Caracas ( , ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas (CCS), is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the northern p ...

to join the Science faculty of the Central University of Venezuela. With the eventual return of democracy to Argentina in 1983, president

Raúl Alfonsín Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (; 12 March 1927 – 31 March 2009) was an Argentine lawyer and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 10 December 1983 to 8 July 1989. He was the first democratically elected president after the 7-yea ...

appointed him as Secretary of State of Science and Technology (until 1989). One of his major contributions to computer science during this period, was the creation of the ESLAI ( Latin American School of Higher Informatics).

Later years

Dr. Manuel Sadosky died in Buenos Aires on June 18, 2005. He was named an Illustrious Citizen of the City of Buenos Aires. The Computer Science Department of the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires is named after him.

Selected publications

* Sadosky, Manuel, ''Cálculo numérico y gráfico'', Buenos Aires: Ediciones Libreria del Colegio, 1952 * Sadosky, Manuel, ''Marx, hombre y revolucionario'', Montevideo Libros de la pupila, 1969 * Sadosky, Manuel, ''Catalogo colectivo de publicaciones periodicas en las bibliotecas universitarias del Uruguay'', Montevideo : Universidad de la Republica, 1972. * Sadosky, Manuel; Sadosky, Cora, ''Complementos teóricos de los Elementos de calculo diferencial e integral de Manuel Sadosky, Rebeca Ch. de Guber'', Buenos Aires: Alsina, 1974. * Sadosky, Manuel; Guber, Rebeca Ch de, ''Elementos de cálculo diferencial e integral,'' Buenos Aires: Alsina, 1982''.''

References

External links

Fundación Sadosky

'' Pagina/12''
Obituary
'' Clarín''
Secretaria de Ciencia y Tecnica

Computer Science Department (FCEN-UBA)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadosky, Manuel 1914 births 2005 deaths Academic staff of the University of Buenos Aires Argentine Jews Argentine mathematicians Argentine people of Russian-Jewish descent Illustrious Citizens of Buenos Aires Jewish economists University of Buenos Aires alumni Argentine computer scientists