He held two
doctorates (in mathematics and
physics) on 1904, as well as two degrees in
engineering, from the
ETSEIB school. He was
professor of
mathematical analysis (teaching
differential equations) and later of
mathematical physics at
Barcelona Central University. He also taught
acoustics,
optics,
electricity,
magnetism and
classical mechanics at the
University of Barcelona, teaching mechanics also at the
University of Zaragoza,
University of Buenos Aires and the
University of La Plata (
Argentina) and
Montevideo (
Uruguay). He was a Member of the
Royal Academy of the Spanish Language and active in the
Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences and the
Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona. He was granted
honorary doctorates by the Universities of Buenos Aires,
University of Santiago (
Chile) and
University of Toulouse (
France) and established as an honorary member of the
Royal Academy of Medicine of Barcelona, the Association of Argentine Engineers, and of the Society of Engineers of
Peru among many other honors. He was an Invited Speaker at the
ICM in 1912 in Cambridge, England. He studied at
Charlottenburg in
Berlin, Barcelona and Madrid. Known as an exceptional student, entered the University in 1898, when was only 15 years old. He held professorships in the universities of Zaragoza, Barcelona and Madrid, specializing in physical and mathematical sciences and publishing numerous articles about those subjects. In 1909, while at the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona, he produced an important work entitled
Emisión de radiaciones por cuerpos fijos o en movimiento. His
teaching and pedagogical activity was also important. He published articles in the "Revista de la Academia de Ciencias" in Madrid, and in the bulletin of the
Institute of Sciences of Barcelona. He set up a physics-mathematics
seminar, to which he brought some of the best regarded scientists of his time. He became a founding member of the Sciences Section of the
Institute of Catalan Studies in 1911, within the framework of the
Monographic Courses of High Studies of Exchange promoted by the
Commonwealth of Catalonia. He also participated in the
Minerva Collection, where he published "The
radium". In 1919 set up the
Institute of Electricity and Applied Mechanics and was its director; he was also a teacher of the section of
electrotechnics of the
Escola del Treball. He was interested in
photography, a new practice in the early 20th century, using it to illustrate his technical and scientific works as well as his personal life. The theories of
quanta and
relativity captivated him, and he invited such figures as
Jacques Hadamard (1921),
Hermann Weyl (1921),
Arnold Sommerfeld (1922),
Tullio Levi-Civita (1922) and
Albert Einstein (1923) to Barcelona. Einstein's Spanish visit, between 22 and 28 February 1923, was a notable success, organized by Terradas, the Catalan Government, the
Mancomunitat, and
Rafael Campalans. Terradas was also the driving force behind a series of scientific
monographs that were a compilation of these lectures, his own and the works of others (including
Julio Palacios,
Julio Rey Pastor and
Jacques Hadamard), published by the Institute of Catalan Studies under the title "Physics and Mathematics Courses". He lectured at several universities in South America: in Buenos Aires and
Rio de la Plata (
Uruguay) from 1936 to 39. Terradas was the first professor to hold the chair in Differential Equation when it was first established in Madrid in 1932. ==Industries consultant==