Current Science

Rajesh Gopakumar ¹, Spenta R. Wadia ¹

Affiliations
1 International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru 560 089, IN

Abstract

'The gravitational waves were detected on 14 September 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC) by both of the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Washington, USA.'

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Rajesh Gopakumar ¹, Spenta R. Wadia ¹

Affiliations
1 International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR), Shivakote, Bengaluru 560 089, IN

Abstract

Stephen Hawking, born 8 January 1942, at Oxford in an academic family, had an early aptitude and inclination towards science. He studied physics and chemistry at university in Oxford, though he seems not to have excelled as a student, instead spending much of his time at the college boat club! He went to Cambridge for his Ph D hoping to study cosmology with Fred Hoyle, but instead was assigned to Dennis Sciama who proved to be an important influence on him. It was at this time that Hawking was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease – a degenerative motor neuronal disorder. Though he was given only a couple of years to live at age 22 or so, his disease progressed slower than predicted.

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Sanjay Jain ¹, Spenta R. Wadia ²

Affiliations
1 Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, IN
2 International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru 560 089, IN

Abstract

Murray Gell-Mann was among the very eminent and influential physicists of the second half of the 20th century. He was born in New York City on 15 September 1929. He graduated from Columbia Grammar School at the age of 14 and got his undergraduate degree from Yale at 18. Gell-Mann obtained his doctorate degree from MIT, under the supervision of Victor Weisskopf, in just two and a half years. He joined the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, in 1951 where he worked with Francis Low. During 1952–54, he was briefly on the faculty of the University of Chicago with Enrico Fermi and Marvin Goldberger. He joined Caltech in 1955 as an associate professor on the recommendation of Richard Feynman, where he continued until retirement in 1993 as Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical Physics. 1993 onwards he remained the R. A. Millikan Professor Emeritus at Caltech and distinguished Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1969 ‘for his contributions and discoveries concerning the classification of elementary particles and their interactions’. His students include Sydney Coleman, James Hartle, Kenneth G. Wilson, Christopher T. Hill and Barton Zweibach. He passed away in Santa Fe on 24 May 2019.

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