The Greek-French physicist Jean Iliopoulos is one of the key figures in the consolidation of the Standard Model of particle physics. One of the three authors (together with the Nobel Prize in Physics Sheldon Glashow and Luciano Maiani) of the GIM mechanism, the theoretical proposal that, in 1970, postulated the existence of the charmed quark, he visits Santiago de Compostela on the occasion of the IGFAE's Science Week.

In his lecture, he will tell the public how the discovery he promoted from a theoretical perspective meant a radical change in the perception of the fundamental structure of matter, promoting a new vision of the nature of the fundamental forces.