Luis Antonio Santaló, a mathematician specialising in the field of geometry, was born in Gerona on the 9th November 1911. he lived in his home-town until he was sixteen, then moving to Madrid, where, in 1935, he received his doctorate in Exact Sciences from the Complutense University.
For a time he worked in Hamburg (Germany) with Professor Virgen Blázquez, who was then creating integral geometry. Thus, Santaló had the opportunity of discovering the branch of mathematics in which he is now the leading figure.
In 1936, shortly after returning to Madrid, war broke out and he was mobilized. At the end of the conflict, he was another one of the thousands of refugees who crossed the frontier and sought asylum in France. After suffering the experience of a concentration camp, the Spanish mathematician Julio Rey Pastor invited him to travel to Argentina, sending him a ticket and the necessary visa.
Since 1939, Santaló has lived in Argentina, where all his teaching and scientific activity has been carried out. Shortly after arriving there, he was employed as a teacher by the University of the Littoral, in Rosario, the city where he was to spend ten years. In 1949 he travelled to the United States to extend his studies in Princeton and Chicago, and in 1950, he settled in Buenos Aires, employed by the Faculty of Exact Sciences, to work with Rey Pastor.
An eminent, internationally-known mathematician, he is considered as one of the most important geometricians of this century. He has published more than two hundred research works in integral geometry, metric, affine and projective differential geometry, the geometry of convex bodies, numbers theory, geometric probabilities and single field theory.
His works, which have had, over the last thirty years, special influence in the scientific world of the Spanish-speaking nations, have likewise been published in the most important North American, British, German and Soviet scientific magazines.
Even when the mathematical work of Santaló is basic research, some of his results have been of decisive importance for other applied disciplines, in particular in operative research, biology and estereology.
A fundamental aspect of the work of Santaló is the fact of his profound contribution to social progress and a constant efforts to modernize the teaching of mathematics in Spanish-speaking countries.
He has been President, since 1980, of the National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Buenos Aires, which he joined as a titular member in 1960. He is a corresponding member, since 1955, of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Madrid; of the National Academy of Córdoba, Argentina, since 1961; of the National Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences of Lima, Peru; and of the Royal Academy of Science and Arts of Barcelona since 1970.
From 1966 to 1972 he was the vice-president of the Inter-American Committee for Mathematical Education, and president from 1972 to 1979.
Convinced that mathematical education is necessary for the development of a country, he has published two books and fourteen studies on this subject, and has worked unceasingly over recent decades for its improvement at a multitude of congresses, symposia and international conferences.
Luis Antonio Santaló is doctor "honoris causa" of the Polytechnic University of Barcelona (1977); the National Northwest (Argentina, 1977) and National Mission (Argentina,1982).
He has been Professor in the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires since 1976.