The scientific and academic community of Lanzarote, with the support of the Arrecife City Council, celebrated this Wednesday a tribute to the Lanzarote scientist Blas Cabrera Felipe, one of the fathers of modern physics and a pioneer in contemporary studies on magnetism, on the 75th anniversary of his death.
The Councilor for Education of Arrecife, the popular Saro González, participated in the recognition and floral offering that took place next to the monument sculpture in the José Ramírez Cerdá Park. A tribute that the mayor, Ástrid Perez, could not attend, as she was in the Parliament of the Canary Islands where an urgently convened plenary session was being held.
Blas Cabrera Felipe, who was born in Arrecife as his father was assigned to this island as a notary, died on October 7, 1945 in Mexico, a country where he went into exile. Two years ago, by agreement of the Council of Ministers, it was agreed to restore to Blas Cabrera Felipe the medal of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, along with other scientists, who were dispossessed by the Franco dictatorship in 1941. An act with which Arrecife considers that "justice was done."
One of the most universal sons
The physicist Blas Cabrera Felipe is one of the most outstanding Spanish scientists of all time. Eldest son of the lawyer and notary Blas Cabrera Topham and Antonia Felipe Cabrera, he was born in Arrecife in 1878. As a child, his family moved to Tenerife, an island that adopted him. At the end of the century he moved to Madrid and as a result of contact with Ramón y Cajal, his teacher and friend, he obtained a doctorate in Physical Sciences in 1901.
Blas Cabrera is still considered the father of modern physics in our country. He hosted his colleague Albert Einstein on his visit to Spain in 1923 and is, without a doubt, one of the most universal sons of the island, along with the writer Clavijo y Fajardo and the artist César Manrique, also born in Arrecife.
He was a member and president of the Royal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences; member of the Royal Spanish Academy; president of the Spanish Society of Physics and Chemistry; director of the Laboratory of Physical Research; director of the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry; foreign member of the French Academy of Sciences; member of the Scientific Committee of the Solvay Conferences (Brussels); rector of the Central University of Madrid and of the Menéndez Pelayo International University; and secretary of the International Committee of Weights and Measures of Paris.
This Wednesday, Arrecife, his hometown, proudly joined this recognition, where several students who are studying at the Secondary Education Institute in Arrecife that bears the name of this illustrious scientist also participated.
Along with the Councilor for Education of the Arrecife City Council, the Councilor for Education of the Cabildo, Paula Corujo, the president of the Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Humanities of Lanzarote, Dr. Francisco González de Posadas, and the director of the IES Blas Cabrera Felipe also participated in the offering.
"The memory and legacy of Cabrera Felipe will always be in Arrecife and Lanzarote," they point out from the City Council, from where they remember that his name is linked to the Arrecife institute, the cradle of many great professionals. In addition, a street in the city (next to La Marina) bears his name, and his image is sculpted in a sculpture "so that new generations know and know that this island has been the birthplace of one of the greats in research and science in Spain."
