The Lanzarote physicist celebrates 145 years since his birth in Arrecife. As every year, the educational community of the IES Blas Cabrera Felipe in collaboration with the Mercedes Medina Association pay a small tribute to the universal physicist, reading a manifesto by a student of the center and placing a wreath of flowers on the bust of Blas Cabrera that is located at the main entrance of the Institute that bears his name, reports the association.
The first institute of Lanzarote was created in 1928 with the name of Local Institute of Secondary Education of Arrecife, becoming the first institute on the island and the third in the Canary Islands. From the early years, the 1940s, both the island's press, faculty and local authorities considered that the best tribute to the figure of Don Blas Cabrera Felipe was to give his name to the first institute.
After several refusals from the educational authorities of the Dictatorship, in 1970 this denomination was authorized. Its first headquarters was in the Charco de San Ginés, moving in 1948 to a new building on Coronel Bens Street (currently occupied by the IES Agustín Espinosa), moving in 1969 to its current headquarters in the Titerroy neighborhood.
Blas Cabrera Felipe, considered the father of Spanish Physics, was born on May 20, 1878 in Arrecife. He studied high school in La Laguna and graduated in physical-mathematical sciences from the Central University of Madrid, where he became Professor of Electricity and Magnetism and later rector, a position he also held at the Summer University of Santander. He was director of the National Institute of Physics and Chemistry (precursor of the current Higher Council for Scientific Research, CSIC) and a member of the Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences as well as the RAE.
He was a great disseminator of physics in society, gave several lectures in Spain and South America and published some books. Internationally, he was considered an eminence in the field of magnetism (his contributions to this field and his publications support this). He was a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris and the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (of which he was secretary general). Since 1928, at the proposal of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein, he has been part of the Scientific Council of the Solvay International Institute of Physics. At the beginning of the Civil War he went into exile first in Paris and then in Mexico, where he died on August 1, 1945.
This year marks the centenary of Einstein's arrival in Spain in various parts of the country. Blas Cabrera acted as host during his visit to Madrid in 1923 and distinguished himself as the first to disseminate Einstein's theories of relativity in our country. The remains of Blas Cabrera Felipe from exile from Mexico arrived in October 2022 and rest in the San Luis cemetery in La Laguna.
The floral offering and reading of the biographical synthesis that was read by fourth and first year high school students of Blas Cabrera Felipe was attended by the Deputy Minister Doña Dolores Rodriguez González, the Director of Blas Cabrera Marta E Martín Morales and representatives of the Mercedes Medina Díaz Association, among others its President Juán Cruz Sepúlveda.
