José María Plans and Freire Biography

José María Plans y Freire

(José María Plans y Freyre or Freire; Barcelona, 1878-Madrid, 1934) Spanish scientist.After studying physical-mathematical sciences at the University of Barcelona, Plans y Freyre completed a doctorate in Madrid.In 1905 he obtained by opposition the chair of physics and chemistry at the Castellón de la Plana Institute of Secondary Education, and in 1909 the chair of rational mechanics at the University of Zaragoza.

He stayed in this city until 1917, to hold the chair of cosmography and physics of the globe, and also gave a series of lectures on thermodynamics, gathered in a book entitled Lessons in thermodynamics (1913).In 1917, Plans y Freyre obtained the chair of celestial mechanics at the University of Madrid and in the academic year 1917-1918 he joined together with José Gabriel Álvarez Ude in the laboratory and mathematical seminar of the Board for Expansion of Studies, directed by Julio Rey Pastor, as a collaborator and research director.

The theory of relativity, which had begun to take citizenship status in Spain, thanks above all to the work of Blas Cabrera and Esteban Terradas, was a special object of attention from Plans and Freyre.In 1918 he published an article in which, taking the principle of relativity for granted, he exposed the connections between relativistic mechanics and Born's hyperbolic motion.Around the same time, he began directing research on this theory, including the doctoral thesis of Pedro Puig Adam.

In 1921, José María Plans y Freyre published Fundamental notions of relativistic mechanics , a work awarded by the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Madrid.This work is the first systematic treatise on general relativity, although only by way of introduction.Three years later, he published Notions of absolute difference calculus and its applications , a work that sets out the essential mathematical basis for approaching general relativity.

Plans y Freyre became the main disseminator of Einstein's theories in Spain, and also gave considerable impetus to research on these theories.Einstein himself would highlight in Plans "a pilgrim art of expressing deductions with luminosity and relief".

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