Bento de Jesus Caraca

Bento de Jesus Caraça was a prominent Portuguese mathematician, economist, professor, writer and activist. He was born in a peasant family in Vila Viçosa, and learned to read with another peasant. He moved to Lisbon to study and graduated from the Superior Institute of Economic and Financial Sciences in 1923. He became a professor of algebra and infinitesimal calculus, and a pioneer of mathematical analysis in Portugal. He also founded and directed several scientific and cultural institutions, such as the Núcleo de Matemática, Física e Química, the Centro de Estudos de Matemáticas Aplicadas à Economia, the Gazeta de Matemática, and the Biblioteca Cosmos. He was a passionate supporter of the Portuguese Popular University, a project that aimed to provide education to the working class. He wrote several books and articles on mathematics, economics, history, philosophy and art, and was influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, Henri Poincaré and Leonardo da Vinci. He was also a member and leader of the Portuguese Communist Party, and a prominent opponent of the fascist regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. He was arrested, persecuted and dismissed from his academic positions for his political activities. He died of heart disease in Lisbon in 1948, at the age of 47. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential and original Portuguese intellectuals of the 20th century.