IGFAE Science Week celebrates the centenary of quantum mechanics

In 2025, the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology is being celebrated, coinciding with the centenary of the 1925 publications that laid the foundations of quantum mechanics, triggering a revolution in our understanding of the natural world. On the occasion of this milestone, IGFAE’s Science Week approaches this discipline — essential for the development of modern physics — from a wide variety of perspectives.

This eighth edition will run from November 8 to 14, during which a broad program is scheduled. On Saturday, November 8, Science Week will begin with Ciencia Singular, the open-house event organized by CiQUS, CiMUS, CiTIUS, IGFAE, and CRETUS — the five USC centers that form part of the Xunta de Galicia’s CIGUS network.

Lecture by Antía Lamas Liñares

Antía Lamas Liñares, who earned her Physics degree at USC and is now a quantum scientist at Amazon Web Services, will deliver a lecture on Tuesday, November 11. The central event of this week will be her address, which will take place at 8:00 p.m. at the Casa das Máquinas (Rua das Galeras, s/n). Her talk, The Second Quantum Revolution: the Path from Science to Engineering, will discuss the opportunities that, 100 years later, the development of quantum mechanics offers for producing new technologies and products.

Antía Lamas Liñares grew up in Santiago and completed her Physics degree at USC. She then obtained a master’s in Applied Optics from Imperial College London and a doctorate at the University of Oxford. Later she carried out a postdoctoral stay at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before establishing her own quantum optics group at the National University of Singapore.

During her time in Singapore, she helped launch the Quantum Technologies Center, of which she was a founding Principal Investigator. Since 2010 she has worked in the United States, first at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and later at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. In 2019 she joined SpeQtral, a Singaporean startup focused on satellite-based quantum communications, as Principal Quantum Scientist. In 2021 she joined Amazon.

“The Quantum Deck”

Before Antía Lamas’s lecture, at 7:00 p.m., the Casa das Máquinas will also host “The Quantum Deck: Perception, Information, and Reality.” In this activity, IGFAE researcher Javier Mas and illusionist Kiko Pastur come together to portray the bewilderment and confusion that the development of quantum mechanics imposed on our perception and knowledge.

Concert by Sumrrá: “7 Visións” and “O Zoom Cuántico”

The 8th IGFAE Science Week will also embrace music via Sumrrá, one of Galicia’s most recognized jazz bands, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. On Wednesday, November 12 at 8:00 p.m., in the auditorium of the Galician Center for Contemporary Art (CGAC), the group will dive into physics with a concert in which they will debut a previously unreleased piece inspired by quantum physics.

This is an initiative from the Galician Supercomputing Center (CESGA) and IGFAE, supported by the CGAC. The repertoire for this recital will focus on the album 7 Visións, released by Sumrrá in 2021, in which the Galician band assumed an inspiring exercise of “taking perspective and rethinking through music our own existence,” they explain. In addition to pieces from that album, the group will premiere A Oitava Visión.

O Zoom Cuántico, “plays with the idea of transition from classical physics to the quantum revolution, and of how the vision of the same reality can change depending on position, closeness, attention, or technology,” the trio explains.

Particle Physics Wikimarathon, NerdNite and Contemporary Dance Workshop

Beyond initiatives such as the classic NerdNite (Thursday, November 13, 8:30 p.m., A Nave de Vidán), the final stretch of Science Week includes new activities aiming to reach new audiences, such as a Particle Physics Wikimarathon (Thursday, November 13, 3:30 p.m., at the IGFAE headquarters) and a workshop combining quantum physics and contemporary dance (Friday, November 14, 5:00 p.m., CGAC).

The first edition of the Wikimaratón de Física de Partículas will aim to generate Galician-language Wikipedia content related to IGFAE’s research areas. The activity is geared toward IGFAE staff and open to USC Physics undergraduates, related degrees, and anyone interested in particle physics. Registration can be made via this link.

NerdNite will approach quantum topics from various perspectives, such as quantum clocks, superconductivity or the influence of cosmic rays on quantum computation, respectively by Ángel Paredes Galán (IFCAE – University of Vigo), Jesús Mosqueira Rey (USC Quantum Materials & Photonics Group), and Carolina Filgueira Rama (IGFAE).

Science Week will close with a new workshop that weaves quantum physics and contemporary dance, coordinated by IGFAE researcher Héctor Álvarez and artist Paula Quintas. It will explore principles such as superposition, uncertainty, entanglement, and observation, and their role in inspiring new forms of creation and movement. The workshop invites artists, dancers, and curious minds to inhabit the space between the visible and the invisible, the tangible and the potential, generating a practice that combines scientific thought, bodily intuition, and scenic experimentation. Enrollment in the activity, limited to 25 participants, will open soon.