Gather physicists from all over the world

In Spain there are a group of 25 scientists who have spent the last two weeks discussing advanced theoretical physics together with professors of such prestigious centers as the King’s College or the universities of London, Cambridge and Edimburg. So far exceptional. One more summer course. The striking thing is that this brain meeting willing to unravel the mysteries of the universe has not been held in Madrid, Barcelona or any other great city in the country. The appointment It was organized in As Barreirasuntil recently an abandoned village of Galicia.

And all thanks to an Italian physique who one day believed that an uninhabited area of Ourense was not a bad place to unravel the mysteries of physics.

In a place in Galicia … Castro Caldelas is a town of little more than 1,200 inhabitants located in full Ribeira Sacra, in the province of Ourense. There, in the parish of Poboeiros, there is a small core called As Barreiras that according to The last census The INE has a single neighbor. In that remote point of Rural Gallego he put his eyes a while ago the cultural association La Ricottawhich has been marked among other objectives Organize courses and divulation workshops.

One of its promoters is Paolo Benincasaan Italian physicist of long experience that has gone through universities Wenster Ontario, Durham, Santiago de Compostela or the Theoretical Physics Institute and Niels Bohr International Academybetween Other centers first level. His role is important because he has combined his interest in recovery and as barreiras with his scientific profile.

Slowly cooked. How to fit a priori pieces so different? Beninnsa began to spin over a decade ago, in 2013, and a few years ago he took a key step in As Barreiras. “I bought this site and started reforming it in 2021,” he says in statements collected by The avant -garde. What it refers to is the place where it has ended up organizing its peculiar summer of Sages, a large house surrounded by a farm and a Palleira (a traditional Galician construction) that has rehabilitated patiently to turn it into a classroom.

To carry out the project, Beninnsa created the association, in which two physicists who work in Madrid and a Galician who are responsible for finance participate.

Could you go further? Beninnsa and his companions decided that yes, so this year they decided to boost a summer school In As Barreiras, an initiative aimed at 25 students Postgraduate and postdoctorals interested in fields such as theoretical cosmology. Not just that. In addition to gathering students, the course was attended by four King´s College of London, the University of London, the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh.

The long twenty participants are offered free accommodation and food. Although, yes, if the environment was not conventional the stay Nor was it: They stay in tents with mattresses and sleeping bags on the plot. All this of course in full as Barreiras, an environment that, Remember The organizers were “evicted until the creation of the La Ricotta project.”

And how did he? At least the course has generated expectation. The voice of Galicia sign that the organizers received 50 requests for 25 places and the selected ones come from places so distant As India, the USA, Japan, Brazil and different parts of Europe. Classes They started on July 21 and end on August 1, 12 days of Border Research They also served to insufflate as Barreiras. The course even had dissemination workshops.

The school has also had the economic support of the Galician Institute of High Energy Physics (IGFAE), a center linked to the University of Santiago de Compostela, and the European Research Council. Now Benyncans already dreams of go further And why not? Continue to encourage the old village with science.

Images | Google Maps and Max-Planck-Institut Für Physik (Facebook)

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