Elisa Maria Eugenia Cibrario Cinquini (6 September 1905 – 16 May 1992) was an Italian mathematician specializing in

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a Multivariable calculus, multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be sol ...

s and known for her research in association with Guido Fubini, Giuseppe Peano, and Francesco Tricomi.

Life

Early life and education

Maria Cibrario was born in Genoa on 6 September 1905. She was educated at the in

Lodi, Lombardy Lodi ( , ; Ludesan: ) is a city and ''comune'' in Lombardy, northern Italy, primarily on the western bank of the River Adda. It is the capital of the province of Lodi. History Lodi was a Celtic village; in Roman times it was called, in Latin ...

, and enrolled in 1923 in a program in physical sciences and mathematics at the University of Turin, where she became a student of Guido Fubini, and graduated in 1927. She became an assistant to Giuseppe Peano, and Peano assisted her in earning a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

as a secondary-school teacher in 1927. Peano died in 1932, and in the same year she obtained a free lecturership and began working with Francesco Tricomi.

Later life and academic career

In 1938, she married mathematician ; they had three children. Soon after marrying, they both took faculty positions at the University of Pavia. In 1947 she won the competition for the chair in mathematical analysis at the University of Cagliari, from which she moved to the

University of Modena The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia ( it, Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia), located in Modena and Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy, is one of the oldest universities in Italy, founded in 1175, with a population of 20, ...

and then, in 1950, returned to Pavia as a full professor. She retired as

professor emerita ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

in 1980. She died on 16 May 1992, in Pavia.

Research

Cibrario's 1927 thesis concerned Laplace transforms and their application to

parabolic partial differential equation A parabolic partial differential equation is a type of partial differential equation (PDE). Parabolic PDEs are used to describe a wide variety of time-dependent phenomena, including heat conduction, particle diffusion, and pricing of derivati ...

s. From then until the early 1940s, one of her main areas of study concerned partial differential equations of mixed elliptic–hyperbolic type, finding earlier work of Tricomi in this area to be incomplete and publishing a complete classification of these equations and of the solution methods suitable for each type of equation within this classification. This work later had great applicability to the aerodynamics of transonic aircraft, and the Cibrario–Cinquini equation is named for her work from this time. Her later work concerned non-linear differential equations, systems of hyperbolic equations, and the theory of curves and generalized functions. It included the solution of old problems of Édouard Goursat on non-linear hyperbolic equations and of

Augustin-Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy (, ; ; 21 August 178923 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist who made pioneering contributions to several branches of mathematics, including mathematical analysis and continuum mechanics. He ...

on systems of first-order equations.

Recognition

In 1929, Cibrario won the Corrado Segre prize for her early research, and in 1933, Cibrario won a prize for junior researchers from the

Accademia dei Lincei The Accademia dei Lincei (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed", but anglicised as the Lincean Academy) is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rom ...

. She joined the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere in 1951 and became a full member in 1967. In 1968, she became a member of the . After her retirement, in 1981, she was elected as a corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cibrario, Maria 1905 births 1992 deaths Italian mathematicians Italian women mathematicians University of Turin alumni Academic staff of the University of Pavia Academic staff of the University of Cagliari Academic staff of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia