On Thursday, October 16, the Institute for Theoretical Physics (IFT) and the Department of Theoretical Physics at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) held a new edition of the DIFT Colloquium, which took place in the Aula Polivalente from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. The lecture, titled “Gamma Ray Bursts, Cosmic Rays and the Sociology of Science,” was delivered by Álvaro de Rújula, a renowned physicist from the IFT and CERN, who offered a talk that was as provocative as it was rigorous.
During his presentation, de Rújula discussed his interpretation based on the “Cannonballs” (CB) model — highly relativistic plasma spheres emitted by quasars, microquasars, and core-collapse supernovae — thus proposing an alternative explanation to the conventional view of these astrophysical phenomena. Beyond the purely scientific aspects, the speaker also devoted part of his talk to reflecting on the sociology of science, emphasizing the challenges that non-orthodox theories face in gaining acceptance within the academic community.
