Santiago Antúnez de Mayolo

Monument at Parque Ecológico Infantil Chalampampa

Santiago Antúnez de Mayolo was born on January 10, 1887 in the country estate of Vista Bella, province of Aija, Peru, department of Ancash. He was an engineer, physicist and mathematician.

Early years

He studied at Colegio Nacional de la Libertad (Huaraz) and later Colegio Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Lima). At the latter is where he met famed Peruvian writer Abraham Valdelomar. In 1905 he was admitted into the Mathematical Sciences faculty of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima. At the end of the 1906 academic year (24 December), he received a distinction from President José Pardo for his excellent grades, receiving a gold medal upon his promotion. He went on to the Institute Electrotécnico of the University of Grenoble in France.

In the Third Pan-American Scientific Congress held in Lima, Antúnez de Mayolo presented "Hypothesis about the Constitution of Matter," proposing the existence of a "neutral element" in the atom. Eight years later, Englishman James Chadwick confirmed this theory.