A preface to the 70&70 Gravity Fest

Abstract

There are transcendental landmarks in life to account and balance achievements and failures. With no doubt the age of 70 brings with it the possibility to trace back a significant part of our existences and can considered a natural stop. The year 2016 is, for many Latin American physicists, an important date because Rodolfo Gambini Italiano from the Universidad de la Repblica, Uruguay and Luis (Gaucho) Herrera Cometta from Universidad Central de Venezuela reach this age enjoying the passion for building generations of physicis in Latin America and leaving a profound and important imprint in Theoretical Physics along several countries of our continent. This is a tribute to these two masters, a great opportunity to share their visions and particular stiles with new generations of physics students from Latin America.These two masters of the Theoretical Physics have life-lines that crosses at different instants of their lives. Rodolfo (born May 11, 1946), got degree in physics from the University of the Republic in 1972–In fact, he was the first physicist graduated in Uruguay–. Then, he moved to Paris and obtained his doctorate in Theoretical Physics under the supervision of Achilles Papapetrou. This was the first encounter with El Gaucho. Luis (born December 20, 1946) after graduated from the People’s Friendship University, Moscow went to Paris to study also under the guidance of Papapetrou. Luis returned to Caracas in 1972, taking a position at the Universidad Central de Venezuela and joint Professor Carlos Aragone and Gustavo González Martín, starting a seminal group the Caracas Relativity Seminar. Prof. Aragone, former supervisor of Rodolfo, had just arrived to Caracas after militar coup d’état in Uruguay and got a position at Universidad Simón Bolívar, USB. In 1975 Rodolfo also started to work at USB, invited by Prof Aragone and this is the second cross road between him and El Gaucho. In 1978 Rodolfo and Antoni Trias began a great friendship and a fruitful collaboration which leads to the invention of the loop representation for Yang-Mills theories in 1986.Luis Gaucho Herrera is a versatile theoretical physicist with major contribution on the effect of anisotropy on the evolution of selfgravitating compact objects. He also pioneer in the heritage of symmetries within General Relativity and in the application of Extended Thermodynamics for Astrophysical scenarios, where he has very deep and important contributions isolating dissipation effects on relativistic systems. Recently, he has proposed alternative approaches to detect gravitational radiation using gyroscopes and about the relevance of super energy and super Poynting in General Relativity.Rodolfo Gambini is a profound physicist with contributions ranging from philosophy of science and foundations of quantum mechanics to lattice gauge theories to quantum gravity. He has also an active participation building public scientific policies in Uruguay and in recent years he has studied issues in the foundations of quantum mechanics, having developed the Montevideo Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. He also found the exact solution of the quantum Einstein equations in loop quantum gravity for vacuum spherically symmetric space-times, which resolves the singularity inside black holes.Thanks to Dean of Facultad Ciencias Básicas Dr. Jorge Luis Muñiz and the hospitality of Ingrid Tamayo and Rosana Ávila members of the Educación Permanente staff of Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar (Cartagena-Colombia) we met from 28th to 30th of September 2016.Among the researchers that have the opportunity to share visions with Rodolfo and Luis about Classical and Quantum Gravity we can mention: Iván Agullo (Louisiana State University, USA.), Miguel Alcubierre (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México), Roberto Aquilano (Universidad de Rosario Argentina), Jaume Carot (Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain), Alicia Di Prisco (Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela), Guillermo González (Universidad Industrial de Santander, Bucaramanga, Colomba) César López Monsalvo (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, México), Justo Ospino (Universidad de Salamanca, Spain), Jorge Pullin (Louisiana State University, USA.), Hernando Quevedo (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México), Alvaro Restuccia (Universidad de Antofagasta, Chile), Yeinzon Rodríguez (Universidad Industrial de Santander, y Unilversidad Antonio Nariño, Colombia), Olivier Sarbach (Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, México) and Roberto Sussman (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México).1. AcknowledgmentWe gratefully thanks for financial support to Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, Vicerrectoría de Investigación from Universidad Industrial de Santander and Patrimonio Autónomo fondo nacional de financiamiento para la ciencia, la tecnología y la innovación, Francisco José de Caldas, which make possible this meeting.