How was Alicia Sintes, according to her brother: "A childhood full of stimuli fed her taste for research"

PalmaIn Sant Lluís (Menorca) lived Mrs. Van Oppen, daughter of a British military officer stationed in India when it was still under the direct control of the British Crown. She gave private English lessons which, beyond grammatical and phonetic foundations, "were filled with landscapes, experiences, and lifestyles" that far surpassed the daily experience and canons of Western culture known until then by two Menorcan children born in the late 60s. "She encouraged exploring the unknown, opening up to new frontiers, accepting diversity. This experience, undoubtedly, would fuel our interest in opening up to new horizons. Alicia often comments that these English sessions were the seed of her later scientific vocation". Alicia is Alicia Sintes (1969), professor and doctor in Physics from the UIB; and her brother, Tomàs Sintes (1966), also a professor and doctor in Physics from the UIB, tells us about it.

“I remember that, when she was born, she was the darling of the house. She had her bedroom full of dolls, and during her school years she formed a good group of friends with whom she built a great friendship that she still maintains,” says Tomàs, who is three years older than Alicia. They had a chest of drawers full of comics and stories, which they exchanged for second-hand ones. In adolescence, the adventure and mystery novels of Verne, Salgari, Twain, Wells, and Poe expanded their universe.

The two brothers received stimuli from a very young age to cultivate curiosity and thought from their parents, who had no academic training beyond basic studies. “Our father, who had learned the trade of carpenter in our grandfather's workshop, emigrated to Venezuela after the war and returned in 1957. His eagerness to learn, to face difficulties, to do a job well done, and his curiosity to explore new territories were the main values he transmitted to us. Our mother was always committed to the family, with order and good management as essential values. They never hesitated to support us when it was time to start higher education,” recounts Tomàs. And in this context, the two Sant Llorenç residents grew up.

A cousin of his father, Benet Mercadal, was a lover of natural sciences, especially geology. The economic impossibility of accessing higher studies led him to educate himself in a self-taught manner. “He became one of the great specialists of the Quaternary period on the island of Menorca. He shared his passion for fishing with his father. At the gatherings we had, which were also attended by geologists like Joan Rossell and Antoni Obrador, we found ourselves surrounded by books, geological maps, and fossil remains. Benet surprised us by showing us mollusc shells and Pleistocene shark teeth, dated over a million years ago. In this way, even without a university tradition, our childhood was surrounded by stimuli that nurtured a taste for research.”

This life open to the curiosities of the world made Alicia an “excellent, bright, and curious student”. Her interest in answering essential questions about our existence led her to specialize in relativity and cosmology, and she has become an “untiring, passionate, and somewhat introverted worker”. However, Alicia has accompanied her scientific career with an important “dissemination work, highlighting the role of women in science”, remarks Tomàs. For him, Alicia is his “best friend and confidante”, with whom he shares a complicity that began when they were children and spent their summers in Cala Alcaufar, in an old fisherman's hut built by their grandfather, and ran together to the watchtower to better observe the world.