His family will occasionally publish his older articles and lectures on this blog to ensure his thoughts and ideas reach a wider audience.

“The scientific approach and temper are or should be, a way of life, a process of thinking, a method of acting and associating with our fellowmen.” 

–Jawaharlal Nehru, Discovery of India

It is with great pleasure and some trepidation that I stand before you today. Pleasure: because I am deeply conscious of the honour at being asked to deliver this important lecture and because it gives me an opportunity to air my cherished views before an enlightened audience. Trepidation: because I am aware of the galaxy of illustrious speakers who preceded me in this Lecture Series. However, I comfort myself with the thought that as a former Jawaharlal Nehru Fellow, I am speaking among friends and not strangers.

It is a characteristic of many great men that their greatness has several facets. If you ask the question 'Why do you think so and so was great?", different people may answer differently. This was the case with Nehru. Some will recall him as a great freedom fighter, some will think of him as an intellectual of high calibre, while others might assess him as a great leader and statesman. The list does not end here. To me, as a student of science, what comes uppermost in the mind is the fortunate circumstance that our country's Prime Minister was a man who not only appreciated science but also possessed a scientific outlook.

Nehru's attachment to science started long before he became the Prime Minister. Writing to his daughter about the quest of man, from the District Gaol in Dehra Dun on June 10th, 1932, Nehru had this to say:

“Science gives a doubting and hesitating reply, for it is of the nature of science not to dogmatize, but to experiment and reason and rely on the mind of man. I need hardly tell you that my preferences are all for science and the methods of science.”

Thoughts like these were to prove important for the growth of the new born nation in 1947. They continue to be important to us today. Indeed, towards the end of my lecture, even at the risk of being accused of missionary zeal, I wish to emphasize the necessity of having a scientific outlook in all walks of life of our developing nation.

What is a scientific outlook? Again, this question may not, will not invoke a unique answer, even from scientists. I will therefore begin by outlining what I mean by this phrase. I will then illustrate my point of view by giving examples from the history of astronomy and of science in general. Finally, I will proceed to discuss its importance in our everyday life.

THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

School children learning science are told that a scientific investigation consists of three steps: the experiment (E), the observations (O) and the deduction (D). This particular pattern of investigation has emerged after centuries of practice of science; and the scientific outlook that I want to talk about lies somewhere at the bottom of it. Science itself arose out of man's curiosity about Nature. Its origin lies in the questions "What?", "How?" and "Why?" that man put to himself and tried to answer. Each answer gave rise to many more questions. While a correct answer closed one particular subject, it at the same time opened up several new ones. And this proliferation of questions and answers has led to the vast and expanding field of science that we see today. Alexander, before he became 'Great', once complained that because of his father's conquests he would be left with no more worlds to conquer. I do not think that man as a scientist will ever be in that position in his battles to unravel the mysteries of Nature.

Let us see how the E-O-D process operates in science. As mentioned above, its beginning lies in some question about Nature, let us say, about a certain phenomenon seen to occur in our physical world. (The non-occurrence of a phenomenon can also be very significant as I will later illustrate with a famous historical example). The experimental part now comes in. The experiment is set up to observe the phenomenon in several different ways. The experimentor can, in many cases, alter the various operating conditions, or the so-called experimental parameters, to enable him to study the outcome in as many situations as possible. Another object of such experimentation is to eliminate the human element as far as possible and make the results objective.

The next step of observation is not as straightforward as it may sound. The result of the experiment may be qualitative or quantitative. In the latter case the scientist ends up with a set of figures. Before any deductions can be made it is often  necessary to detect a pattern in the observed results, and this is where the so-called signal and noise come in. Here 'signal' represents the pattern which one is looking for against a background of a maze of data, called the 'noise'. The analogy of a specific sound signal against a noisy background is quite clear. How does one extract the signal? The human eye of an experienced experimentor  is very often able to detect this. There are cases, however, of the proverbial needle in the haystack type, where this is not possible and help must be sought from the statistical methods of data analysis. Recourse to statistical methods is in any case desirable to ensure objectivity. Unfortunately, there are situations where even statistical methods are not able to give unambiguous answers. The scientist is then back to the drawing board designing new and better experiments.

The last, but by no means the least, step in this process is that of deductions, i.e., drawing conclusions from the experiment. The scientist is, of course, not satisfied with drawing the  conclusion for the one experiment he has just performed. He is interested in making predictions for other situations not covered by his experiment, e.g. for situations beyond the range of his present experimental parameters. The purpose of this exercise is to prompt future scientific experiments to be designed to test these predictions. His own experiment may also have been done to test the prediction of a previous scientific theory.

This interplay between theory and observations is what keeps science going. Without scientific theories to guide him, the experimentor will not know exactly what to observe. It is only when the theoretical scientist tells his experimental counterpart some of his predictions that the latter can design suitable ways of testing them. Nor can the theoretician work in isolation forever. Unless he produces scientific predictions which can be experimentally tested, his theories will be considered sterile.

This history of science is littered with sterile theories and theories which were ultimately proved to be wrong. It is necessary to make a distinction between the two types. The former types, without any observable predictions, did not contribute to the growth of science. The latter type may have been considered viable for a while. These prompted experiments which eventually led to their disproof. But, in this process, the scientist was also able to advance his knowledge. Indeed, the modern scientist knows that no scientific theory, however right it may seem to be at present, will be entirely correct. Sooner or later some new experiment will be designed which will disprove some crucial predictions of the theory. For a while this may lead to an apparent break-down of law and order in the regime of science; but experience has shown that a new enriched order eventually emerges. Thus the disproof of a well established scientific theory is regarded as a very exciting event by the scientist. It means that Nature has considered man to have matured enough to appreciate yet one more of her bag of secrets! It was in this connection that Sir Hermann Bondi, the well-known astronomer, remarked:

“The essential thing in science is for the scientist to think up a theory. There is no way of mechanising this process; there is no way of breaking it down into a science factory. It always requires human imagination, and indeed in science we pay the highest respect to creativity, to originality. It is, of course, clear that since every theory must live dangerously, the casualty rate is pretty high. So we do not honour scientists for being right; It is never given to anybody to always be right. We honour scientists for being original, for being stimulating, for having started a whole line of work. Science is the most human of endeavours because it depends on co-operation, it depends on people testing each other's work and it depends on people taking notice of each other.” 

-From 'Cosmology Now' Ed. L John (1973, В.В.С. publications)

It is against this background that one must see what is meant by the scientific outlook. The theoretical scientist tells us that the assumptions on which we propose to attack any problem, must be clearly stated and with clearly defined conclusions. The experimentalist tells us that before fully accepting any such assumptions or premises we must subject them to a critical analysis with as few subjective elements as possible. In short, the clarity of statements with a critical assessment of their validity is what forms the essence of scientific outlook. Although it arose out of the development of science it has proved useful to the conduct of human affairs in a wider context. Nor is the scientific outlook necessarily confined to those who practise science. Indeed, far from it. An illiterate, uneducated human being may be endowed with it whereas a professional scientist may be devoid of it! We will now look at some examples of how this outlook influenced the growth of science.

THE MOTION OF PLANETS

For time immemorial man must have looked at the clear night sky and wondered what the heavenly objects were supposed to be. He must have compared and contrasted their appearance with that of the Sun during the day. From where does the Sun appear in the East and where does it go in the West? Why do most bodies move round a northerly direction, the direction of the Pole Star, whereas a few exceptional ones seem to move in irregular ways? Why is the Moon, which apparently is of comparable size to the Sun, considerably less bright than the Sun? These questions must have occurred to the curious among mankind in the past.

Now, there is a tendency in the human mind to ascribe strange natural phenomena to supernatural causes. This tendency runs counter to the scientific approach which is born out of curiosity and thrives on a critical assessment. We see an excellent example of the two tendencies in man's approach to the motion of heavenly bodies. The questions raised above could not be answered straight away and so the former tendency was dominant. It is not surprising therefore, that man ascribed supernatural powers to the Sun, the Moon and the stars. Of these, those with the irregular motions were singled out as having greater power because their irregularity implied that they could move across the sky 'at will'. These are none other than the planets of our Solar System. Human imagination being what it is, it was but another step from this to argue that these 'powerful planets' control human destiny. We could understand and sympathise with this view, shared by most primitive cultures, because in those days, more than two thousand years ago, the answers to the above questions were not in sight. But today, when the scientific approach has provided the answers, the situation should be entirely different.

How the scientific outlook prevailed and led to the solution of the mystery is an interesting story which I will briefly narrate. Among the primitive cultures records were kept of the positions of some important heavenly bodies. The reason for these records was primarily utilitarian. For, man had learned to connect the changing of seasons with the changing positions of these objects in the sky. Since agriculture was strongly dependent on seasons, it was necessary to forecast these, and this is where the primitive astronomical observations helped.

Looking at these records, a curious few of mankind began to wonder whether there was any rule or pattern which controlled the motion of stars and planets. The pattern in the case of stars was discerned without much difficulty, but the planets posed more difficulties. How could one predict the positions of the planets in the sky with reasonable accuracy? 

This hard problem was solved, according to the present records available, by the Greek astronomers in the Greek civilization which flourished before Christ. Their efforts culminated in the epochmaking works of Hipparchus and Ptolemy. These astronomers gave elaborate geometrical constructions involving circles, called the epicycles, to describe how planets move when observed from the Earth. With this epicyclic theory they were able to predict where each planet would be at a given time with reasonable accuracy. (In this context 10% accuracy would be considered 'reasonable'.)

To have detected order behind the chaotic motion of the planets was a feat of high intellectual order. Yet it is characteristic of the scientific approach that the story did not end with Hipparchus and Ptolemy. For several centuries the description of planetary motion as given in Ptolemy's book 'Almagest' was accepted in toto. Indeed, it had achieved the status of religious dogma, a challenge to which invited trouble. Yet such a challenge did come–in the sixteenth century.

Nicolaus Copernicus, born in 1473 in a remote corner of what is now known as Poland, came up with this challenge. The central hypothesis of Greek astronomy was that the Earth was a fixed object in space around which the heavenly bodies moved. Copernicus argued that the description of planetary motion became simplified if the Sun was taken as the fixed object. He went on to give his own geometrical constructions to demonstrate this. 

In this Copernicus did not achieve any significantly better accuracy than Ptolemy, but no one can deny that his picture is considerably less complicated. What is more, by pointing to the Sun as the Centre-piece, he initiated the next important step: the search for the answer to Why? Why do planets move around the Sun? Thanks to the investigations of Kepler, Galileo and Newton, the answer to this question finally emerged. It was Isaac Newton's law of gravitation which accounts for this motion. The planets are attracted to the Sun according to this precise mathematical law. Their motion is governed by this law of force. On the basis of this law the modern astronomer can predict planetary positions with extremely high accuracy. 

We can now contrast the scientific outlook with the superstitious approach to natural phenomena. The view that planets exert influence on human destiny still persists, although the original basis for it is gone. The scientific outlook has led us to the accurate description of planetary motion. Not only that, thanks to space technology man is now on the way to landing scientific instruments on these planets. It should be remembered that the remarkable accuracy of the Viking landing on the planet Mars would not have been possible without a confident application of the laws of science tested through the process of E-O-D.

ARE SCIENTIFIC LAWS SUBJECT TO REVISION?

Let me now turn to another aspect of the scientific outlook as it is applied in science. Are the laws of science, as discovered by the above E-O-D method, sacrosanct and unchangeable? 

In principle, the answer to this question is "No". A scientific theory or law is acceptable only so long as it fulfils the criterion that it explains–or at least does not conflict with any phenomenon observed in Nature. Once it fails to satisfy this criterion, it must either be modified or totally rejected. 

It is characteristic of human nature that even scientists (who are after all human beings!) sometimes fail to appreciate this fact. If a law has been well established for long, but encounters a conflict with a series of experiments, the scientist will resort to a revision of the law only when everything else has failed. This 'everything else' may include new experiments, a different interpretation of the same law, and sometimes a very far-fetched set of assumptions. In his attempt to preserve the status quo he sometimes turns a blind eye to some new revelation from Nature. 

The classic example is the advent of Einstein's special theory of relativity. Towards the end of the last century an experiment on light propagation by Michelson and Morley produced results which simply could not be accounted for in terms of the well-established ideas of Newtonian physics. The experiment attempted to measure the Earth's motion relative to a hypothetical medium called 'the aether'. The medium was believed to serve as a kind of background for the propagation of light. Several attempts to measure this motion resulted in failure. No motion was detected. This could not be put down to a lack of accuracy in the experiments. The experiments were accurate enough for this purpose and yet they registered a 'null' result.

Many famous and experienced theoreticians, including Lorentz, Fitzgerald, Poincare and others, attempted to account for this null result within the existing framework of classical physics inherited from Newton, but they were not successful. It was not until 1905 when Albert Einstein proposed his revolutionary special theory of relativity that this riddle could be solved. And the solution was not of a patchwork type on the earlier attempts, but it involved a radical departure from the Newtonian ideas of space and time. 

Today Einstein's special theory of relativity is an accepted part of science. It forms an essential component of the knowledge of the modern theoretical physicist. Yet, its acceptance by the scientific community was not an overnight affair. Most leading scientists viewed it with suspicion, and it was only gradually that relativity became an established part of modern science. 

Special relativity dealt one blow to the complacency of nineteenth century science. Quantum theory dealt another. The scientists of the last century, especially after the highly successful electromagnetic theory put forward by Maxwell about a hundred years ago, had been gradually coming to the view that most of basic physics was already known and that only details needed to be worked out. This view came in for several shocks with the discovery of atomic phenomena. While the classical laws of science predicted a continuity in the behaviour of natural phenomena, those on the atomic scale showed a discrete or a 'jumpy' behaviour. Nothing of the classical physics seemed to fit. It was characteristic of Lord Kelvin, himself a pioneering research worker in classical physics, to enrol himself as a research student at the age of 76, at his own University, the University of Glasgow, so that he could re-educate himself on the newly emerging physics! It was not until the first quarter of the present century that some sort of order came in this 'new physics' through the so-called quantum theory. 

The special relativity and quantum theories together represent the triumph of the scientific outlook in the development of science. The triumph is not only over Nature, over some of the riddles of the natural phenomena, but it is also a triumph over the innate conservatism of the scientific community. 

This conservatism of the scientist is his tendency to seek shelter in the established ideas. In spite of his declared aim of 'objectivity' in examining and interpreting scientific evidence, he tends to be hostile to any new theory or interpretation. While this is a justified defence against a host of likely cranky ideas, it sometimes results in obstruction or a delay in the acceptance of a genuinely sound new concept. How is one to make a distinction between a cranky idea and a good one? To some extent the experience of the scientist helps but not entirely. Even the most distinguished scientists failed to grasp the importance of special relativity when it was first proposed. 

In astronomy today this problem is being increasingly felt. Thanks to the rapid growth of technology after World War II, the astronomer has several new tools at his disposal to probe the Universe. Side by side with the visual optical telescope, he now has radio telescopes, X-ray telescopes, gamma ray detectors, cosmic ray experiments and so on and so forth. He is discovering new and weird phenomena in the remote corners of the Universe. Some of these he can interpret by clever extrapolations of his scientific knowledge gained in the terrestrial laboratory. But there are many others which defy explanations. How should one approach these apparently insoluble problems?

Speaking in this connection in the 1970 Vatican Conference, Sir Fred Hoyle, a leading astrophysicist of our time, has remarked: 

“I think it is very unlikely that a creature evolving on this planet, the human being, is likely to possess a brain that is fully capable of understanding physics in its totality. I think this is inherently improbable in the first place, but even if it should be so, it is surely widely improbable that this situation should just have been reached in the year 1970.”

–From 'Study Week on Nuclei of Galaxies', Ed. O'Connell (North Holland)   

There are some who would take issue with Sir Fred and argue that nothing discovered so far requires a modification of the existing laws of physics. To me such an attitude seems dangerously close to the point of view of scientists of a century ago, which I mentioned earlier. 

My own personal view is that we may already be seeing evidence in astronomy that our laboratory based knowledge of physics is incomplete and I will illustrate this point of view by hazarding a guess as to where the next breakthrough may come.   

THE LAW OF GRAVITATION   

In describing the history of man's efforts to understand the motion of the planets, I had stated that the law of gravitation given by Isaac Newton successfully accounted for this motion. This law is simple in its statement but profound in its implications. I will not go into the mathematical aspects of this law here, but will concentrate on one particular feature of it. This is the strength of gravitational attraction. This strength is characterised by the constant of gravitation, usually denoted by the letter G. The force of attraction between two masses m1​ and m2​ separated by a distance r is then given by the simple formula   

Thus the bigger the masses the larger is their mutual attraction and the further apart they are the less is this force. In the terrestrial laboratory we deal with relatively small masses and so this force is negligible compared to other forces around, such as electricity and magnetism. Therefore it has not been possible to do many experiments with this law in the terrestrial laboratory. But the situation is quite the opposite in astronomy where we deal with enormously large masses. The mass of the Sun is some two million million million million million kilograms. Our Milky Way system is estimated to be a hundred thousand million times as massive as the Sun. There are strong radio galaxies even more massive than our Milky Way. The question is, "Does the law of gravitation operate for such systems in the same way as it does for the Sun and the planets?" The astronomer works on the assumption that it does. But already there are indications that he may be wrong in making this assumption. 

A related question is "Does G remain a constant, or does it change with time?" Newtonian gravitation implicitly assumes that G is a constant. A more sophisticated law of gravitation, given by Einstein in 1915, the so-called general theory of relativity, makes this assumption even more strongly. What do astronomical facts say?

Recent use of accurate atomic clocks has made it possible for astronomers to check whether G is constant or changing with time. In principle, observations of the Earth and the Moon should tell us something about this. For, if G is slowly decreasing with time the Moon will gradually move away from the Earth and go round it more slowly. The present observations indicate that this may be happening although very slowly. If at all, G may be decreasing by a few parts in a thousand million per century; It is too early to be definitive about this conclusion since it has profound implications for the well established theories of Newton and Einstein. Even if it turns out to be correct, its acceptance by a basically conservative scientific community will take some time. However, it is a tribute to the progress of modern science that such accurate measurements are now becoming possible and the scientist is willing to use them to test the validity of well established theories.

THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK IN DAILY LIFE 

I have given these examples from the history of science and from modern science to illustrate how the scientific outlook has been responsible for whatever progress science has made to date. have also given examples to show how even the professional scientist may suffer lapses from this objective outlook and display a hostility or at least a lack of receptivity to new ideas. Nevertheless, the technological progress we see around us today became possible because man used the scientific outlook for expanding the frontiers of knowledge. 

However, the scientific outlook need not be the prerogative of the scientist alone. After all, it owes its origin to human curiosity about Nature and as such every one of us, whether a scientist or not, is entitled to it. Indeed, just as in the case of science, progress could be achieved only when the scientific outlook prevailed over the innate conservatism, so in the case of a society of human beings this outlook acts as an antidote to the evils of prejudice and superstitions. 

Superstitions are born out of ignorance of how Nature functions. Science is dedicated to the unravelling of the mysteries of Nature. As one particular mystery is solved, we should expect the superstitions based on it to disappear. Yet, this does not always happen in practice because of the lack of scientific outlook in the typical human being. I give below one example. 

I mentioned earlier how the early human societies ascribed divine powers to planets. This assumption arose from ignorance of what planets are and how they move. Now that astronomy has answered most of the questions raised about planets by primitive man, we should expect this assumption to be regarded as groundless. Yet this has not happened. Even in the technologically advanced country like the United States this belief persists among sections of educated classes. As recently as a year ago a group of 186 leading scientists in that country were signatories to a circular denouncing the very basis of this belief. I give below an extract from their statement:

“It is simply a mistake to imagine that the forces exerted by stars and planets at the moment of birth can in any way shape our futures. Neither is it true that the position of distant heavenly bodies make certain days or periods more favourable to particular kinds of action, or that the sign under which one was born determines one's compatibility or incompatibility with other people.... In these uncertain times many long for the comfort of having guidance in making decisions. They would like to believe in a destiny predetermined by astral forces beyond their control. However, we must all face the world, and we must realize that our futures lie in ourselves, and not in the stars.” 

-From The Humanist (Sept Oct. 1975)   

Suppose a scientist is asked to examine this question: Do planets influence human destiny? How will he go about testing the hypothesis that the answer to this question is 'Yes?' He will not be satisfied by the prediction by a single person based on a single horoscope. First he will require a set of well-defined rules on which such predictions are based. The rules should be unambiguous so that different persons make the same prediction from the same horoscope. Next he will need to be convinced that these rules work in a statistically significant manner to discount the possibility of the prediction being right purely by chance. This will require a systematic study of a large number of cases under different conditions.

Let me give a simple example to illustrate my point of view. Suppose someone claims to predict with reasonable accuracy whether a tossed coin will fall with 'head' up or 'tail' up. Will a single toss decide the truth of his claim? We all know that any one can predict correctly the outcome with fifty percent accuracy. This chance element must somehow be reduced. Suppose we ask him to perform this prediction-test 100 times, and he predicts correctly 50 times. Again we will argue that this is not a significant indicator of his predictive power. But suppose he is accurate 51 times. Do we give him credit? What if he is accurate 70 times? The statistician comes to our rescue here. He has devised tests to decide whether the success achieved in a particular experiment is purely due to chance or due to some other factor (e.g. the ability to predict correctly in the above case or the possibility of the coin being biased). 

Likewise, tests have to be made of the above hypothesis about planets. Such tests as have been conducted so far by scientists have shown negative results. But again, it is not always necessary to call upon the professional scientist to perform such tests. The educated common man can himself sift the evidence provided he adopts an objective outlook.  Of the scientific outlook in a layman, I can think of no better example than that of James Watt. Seeing the lid of a kettle of boiling water being tossed out he began to wonder about the cause and so arrived at the power of trapped steam. This was the beginning of the technological revolution in England. The hostile reception accorded to the first steam engine by the general public is well known, and is a reflection of the prejudice and irrational fear born out of ignorance. Yet eventually this mode of transport became widely accepted. 

I re-emphasize in the above example the fact that James Watt was not a professional scientist. But he possessed the curiosity and the urge to experiment which go on to make the scientific outlook. A few months ago we had a similar notable example in our own country. Mr. Chandrasekhar Lohumi, a retired headmaster from a remote part of the Naini Tal district in Uttar Pradesh recently received recognition for his work on controlling the weed Lantana camara which is known to be highly destructive to crops. The important fact about Mr. Lohumi's achievement was that he had neither a formal scientific education, nor any sophisticated apparatus at his disposal. But, he possessed the most important asset, namely the driving spirit behind a true scientist. 

THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK VERSUS TRADITIONS 

India is a country with a long history of refined human culture. It has been, and it continues to be, the home of some of the world's great religions. Its multi-language literature is rich in the thoughts of great thinkers. We, the Indians, are proud to inherit this legacy from our past. 

Yet, it is up to us to derive the maximum benefit from this legacy. Do we merely stay content that we had such a glorious past? Or do we heed and follow literally the views of our forefathers regardless of the time and conditions under which they were voiced? Or should we pick up the essence of their wisdom and adapt it to the changing circumstances of today's world? To me it seems that by and large our present society is happily following the first two approaches and scarcely bothers to give a thought to the third one even though it appears logically the most important.

 Let us take the case of Hindu religion. Its primary sources, the Vedas and the Upanishads, are said to be without authors. Yet whoever originated them, was (or were) moved by the spirit of rational enquiry which would have done credit to any scientist today. However, this desire to ask questions and seek answers seems to have got lost behind the multitude of meaningless rituals we see around today. Gone is the simple outlook on life cherished by our ancient forefathers: instead we have a multitude of do's and dont's under the name of religion or tradition. And the underlying hypocrisy is reflected by the fact that if we don't like to follow certain rules we have been clever enough to invent a set of new rules to act as loopholes. 

Let me illustrate this by giving an example. Suppose a business executive has to make a business trip on a certain day. One of the rules says that this particular day is inauspicious for a trip. What should he do? He cannot change the day of the trip for business reasons. Yet he is unwilling to break the rule. So he looks for a loophole. On the previous day (which is not inauspicious) he goes out of the house and leaves some token item with a neighbour. He then returns to his house and goes on his trip the next day as planned. His visit to the neighbour is supposed to mark the beginning of his trip. So he has fulfilled his business obligation on the required day without beginning his trip on an inauspicious day. I present this example to you without comment.

Similar examples may be found in other religions. It is characteristic of all great religious thinkers and philosophers that their greatness is motivated by the same spirit of inquiry that drives the great scientist today. What questions to ask may change from time to time or from one person to another but the desire to know is common to all of them. Yet, by the time their wisdom is transmitted to the common man, by a succession of followers and interpreters, the original humility of the great men is forgotten. Instead their place is taken by the so-called demi-gods or miracle workers.

Partly the common man himself is to blame for this state of affairs. In his desire to avoid the hard work needed for success and he is forever on the lookout for short-cut methods. The so-called 'miracles' appear to him the ideal way to achieve his end.  

Albert Einstein once said "In this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people." The scientist is the last person to assert that he knows "all the answers". He is forever asking questions and searching for solutions. He does not claim to have an efficient method either. He may blunder through, sometimes pass by, the correct answer. But he will not accept anything on trust just because someone said so. 

Unfortunately, the hard-headed scientist is yet to discover a 'miracle' in his investigations of natural phenomena. After years of work he has arrived at certain 'conservation laws' which are obeyed in Nature. These laws have precise mathematical formulations and accurate experimental verifications; but in the crude language of the layman they imply the dictum 'you cannot get something from nothing". A scientific investigation of the so-called 'miracles' one hears of at present would be very rewarding, whatever its outcome. If the 'miracles' are proved to be frauds the society will rid itself of an evil. If they are proved to be genuine it would mean a great leap forward in the advancement of science. As a scientist I therefore heartily endorse the call for such an investigation by competent experts.

THE SCIENTIFIC OUTLOOK IN A DEVELOPING NATION 

Speaking some ten years before the independence, Nehru had expressed the conviction that:

“Science alone can solve the problem of hunger and poverty, of insanitation and illiteracy, of superstition and deadening custom and tradition, of vast resources running to waste, of a rich country inhabited by starving people”  

-From 'Jawaharlal Nehru' by Frank Moraes (Macmillan)  

Indeed, at first sight these problems before us appear to be formidable if not unsurmountable. Yet, we have only to look at the remarkable progress of science over the last few decades to see that a properly channelled scientific approach holds out hope for the future. The achievements of space technology with such highlights as the manned trips to the Moon, the landing on Mars and the SITE programme in our own country, the rapid growth of communications which has dramatically brought the far corners near, the advances in medicine, biology, agriculture... are they not scientific miracles happening before our own eyes and achieved during less than the span of a generation? Unlike the so-called miracles I mentioned earlier, the miracles of science benefit not one single individual, but a whole class of humanity. They benefit the poor as well as the rich. The invention of electric power not only runs the gadgets of the rich, it also provides light to the remote villages.

Let me elaborate a little on what I mean by a properly channelled' scientific approach. In a major war, there are several different operations involved. There are planners deciding the strategy. There are factories producing the required armaments. There are complex issues involving communications between different nerve centres. And of course, there are soldiers, commandos, to say nothing of intelligent men. All these and many others do their bit to make a successful attack. So is the case with the scientific attack on the various problems facing the country. For this you need pure scientists to do basic research, applied scientists to consider applications of science to human welfare and technologists to translate these concepts into reality. You also need educated people to acquaint the masses with what science has to offer and to create a climate in which the common man becomes interested in and receptive to the new ideas of science.

In this connection I want to emphasize two points. First, the task of popularisation of science is a very important one. How to get the essence of a scientific idea across to the common man, without killing his curiosity with complex formulae and too many numbers? It is a knack which is not possessed by many scientists even though they may be experts in their fields. It is therefore all the more important that those who are fortunate enough to possess this knack, consciously set aside a fraction of their time for bringing science to the layman. 

The second important point is that we must not denigrate basic research. It would be a shortsighted point of view to argue that basic research is an expensive luxury which a developing country cannot afford, To elaborate this, I can do no better than reproduce here an extract from the speech made by Dr. Homi Bhabha, the founder of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research on the occasion of the inauguration of the new buildings of the Institute by Nehru:  

“By fundamental research I mean basic investigations into the behaviour and structure of the physical world without any consideration regarding their utility whether the knowledge so acquired would ever be of any practical value. Nevertheless, the support of such research and of an institution where such research can be carried out effectively is of the greatest importance to the society for two reasons. First of all, and paradoxically, it has immediate use in that it helps to train and develop in a manner in which no other mental discipline can, young men of the highest intellectual calibre in a society into people who can think about and analyse problems with a freshness of outlook and originality which is not generally found. Such men are of the greatest value to society, as experience in the last war showed.”  

Dr. Bhabha then went on to point out that the history of science has shown that genuine knowledge of the universe is always potentially useful for man not just because someday action may be taken on it, but also because 'every new knowledge necessarily affects the way in which we hold all the rest of our stock'.

The developed nations have recognized these facts and they continue to encourage basic research. For us to ignore basic research at this stage would mean that we will have to keep on importing new ideas from abroad. This would be contrary to our policy of self-reliance. India has plenty of talent for basic research, most of which is untapped. Suitable support for basic research will unearth this talent and bring in its own rewards in the long-term if not immediately. Right now I can think of one analogy to illustrate my point of view. Imagine a country which has vast untapped resources of oil, but which will not search for these for reasons of heavy financial outlay. Such a country will forever be dependent on oil imported from abroad. And, finally let me emphasize that basic research does not require heavy financial outlay. We must, however, ensure with adequate safeguards that the research produced is of first class quality. 

Nehru had appreciated this fact and his emphasis on scientific research, both basic and applied, bears testimony to this. The national laboratories, the institutes of technology, the atomic energy programme, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and many other institutions including universities grew up rapidly in Nehru's India. It is to these that we must look for the trained scientists and technologists who will guide our country into the increasingly science-dominated future. 

But it is not enough to put the responsibility for the momentous task on the Government alone, or on the scientific elite. The responsibility for nation building extends right down to the common man. And, for him to function efficiently, he must be receptive to the new ideas of science which may at times be at variance with his traditional beliefs.  Writing about tradition and its influence, Nehru said:  

"The impact of science and the modern world have brought a greater appreciation of facts, a more critical faculty, a weighing of evidence, a refusal to accept tradition merely because it is tradition. But even today it is strange how we suddenly become overwhelmed by tradition, and the critical faculties of even intelligent men cease to function... Only when we are politically and economically free will the mind function normally and critically..." 

-From Discovery of India  

This was written during the British Raj. Today we live in a free India which is feeling its way towards economic prosperity. Yet we are still a long way away from achieving that scientific outlook which is so essential for our future wellbeing. 

While making this plea on behalf of science let me utter a word of caution against an indiscriminate use of the inventions of science. The developed countries are beginning to experience some of the ill effects of excessive and indiscriminate use of science and technology. We should try to avoid such evils like pollution, drug addiction, the break up of the family as a unit, when we seek to solve the existing problems with the help of science. Let us not end up as intellectual barbarians or technological savages, as the developed countries have been sometimes called. It is here, I think that we can draw on our rich cultural heritage–on the wisdom of our forefathers over many centuries. I am optimistic that if we are not blinded by traditions and dazzled by science but keep our eyes open, our country will make a triumphant entry into the year 2001.    

I have heard many people complain that the administration or management of an institution takes up so much time that one cannot do anything creative. My own experience has been otherwise: I discovered that by letting your colleagues share the burden through delegation of responsibilities, you can find more time for your cherished activities–in my case, for research, teaching and writing. Even so, it becomes important how one manages the twenty-four hours that all of us are allotted every day and night. In this instance, I heard an excellent anecdote that I wish to share with you, as it reflects the strategy I have been following in this regard.

Once a teacher brought a jar to the class, along with stones, pebbles, sand and water. He proceeded to fill the jar with big stone pieces. When he could put no more in, he asked if the jar was full. “Yes”, said the class. “Wrong” replied the teacher as he proceeded to put in small pebbles, which went into the many interstices. When he could put no more pebbles, he repeated his question. “No” roared the class, this time aware that there was still some space left for the grains of sand. After filling as much sand as he could, the teacher asked again: Is the jar full? Again the class answered, “No”. “Correct,” said the teacher as he filled the remaining space with water. “What do you learn about time management, from this experiment?” The teacher asked. The class answered: “In between your major tasks there is always time available to carry out your many minor duties.” “Excellent!”, said the teacher. “But there is more to it”, he said and proceeded to perform another experiment. This time he started filling the jar in the reverse order, first with sand and then pebbles. However, when he came to the stones, there was no room left for them! The moral? “If you spend more time on your smaller tasks, you may find that you have none left for your big and important activities!” So it all boils down to getting your priorities right and then fitting all things big and small in the right order!

Before the IUCAA adventure, I had close experience of two famous institutions: the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, founded by the famous astronomer Fred Hoyle and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, founded by Homi Bhabha.

Fred Hoyle resigned and left Cambridge when the first six years of his institute were over. The institute, combined with the optical observatory next door, reemerged in a larger form. Homi Bhabha had two decades at the helm of the TIFR, during which time the institute grew in strength and moved to its present premises on the shores of the Arabian Sea. I am sure both these founders had a sense of satisfaction at achieving something of lasting value, something which generations of scientists and students can benefit from. A Founder Director of a successful institution has this enviable sense of satisfaction.

There is always a feeling of insecurity when the Founder Director of a successfully run institution moves away from the scene. The Founder may have contributed enormously to the institution, from its genesis to its state of glory. However, the real test of their achievement lies in how the institution performed after the founder was gone from the scene. This is when its inherent strength would be tested. The best of scientific institutions, like the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, College-de-France in Paris, or the Institute in Gottingen, have had their ups and downs, as science itself goes through wave-crests of high excitement and activity interspersed with relatively fallow and dull periods of modest productivity.

These ups and downs should not be judged in the same way as the profits and losses of an industrial unit. The essential feature to look for is whether the institution has an inherent strength, a group of first-class research scientists, state-of-the-art facilities, and a competent support staff, all covered by rules and bye-laws that are intelligently designed to help fulfill the basic aims and objectives of the institution. Given these fundamental strengths, the organization will ride through the fallow periods and once more attain peaks of glory. Though people who have been fortunate enough to create successful institutions enjoy being at their helm, they are even more fortunate if they wisely relinquish the responsibility to others when the time is ripe, and watch the progress of their creation from a distance in a detached mood. The Karmayoga advocated by the Bhagavadgita shows the way for a graceful exit.

After Phase II of IUCAA’s building programme was completed, we continued with Correa as our architect for Phases III and IV, involving a 500-seat Auditorium and a Recreation Centre. All along, I felt that instead of a formal structure with long corridors of monotony, the IUCAA buildings should be architecturally pleasing and carry scientific information for the casual view. The idea resonated with Charles, and many such items were identified. For example, having seen the original pendulum installed by scientist Foucault in the Pantheon building in Paris, my wife Mangala suggested installing a Foucault Pendulum in a central place in IUCAA. This was done, and the dedication of IUCAA started symbolically with the pendulum.

To bridge the gap between science and society, exhibits like these have a role. Some of them may be mentioned: larger than life size statues of four scientists (Aryabhata, Galileo, Newton and Einstein), an authorized descendent of Newton’s apple tree, Sierspinski’s gasket as an example of fractals, a small scale replica of the maze in the grounds of Hampton Court Palace near London, Penrose’s design of flooring with irregular shaped tiles and, of course, several models in IUCAA’s Science Park.

The public-oriented activities of IUCAA have established a reputation that prompted the literary couple, the late P.L. Deshpande and Sunita Deshpande, to donate funds that UGC or other government grants cannot support.

In deciding on this date, I took into consideration the inputs provided by the architect and the construction managers. Allowing margins for delays, they felt that they could get the work completed by early December 1992. We wanted the Nobel Laureate Prof. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar to give the Dedication Lecture. After some correspondence, he agreed, and the date of 28 December 1992 was confirmed for the ceremony. Again, I felt incredibly lucky that the whole project had moved so fast.

Perhaps I should mention that before we had any space of our own, we had use of one room in the Golay Bunglow, the house where the Pune University Registrar used to stay. All our administrative and academic activities were confined to the 100-odd square feet of that room with overflow on the steps outside. However, within six months, we built a temporary ‘cottage’ that we named ADITI (mother of the Hindu gods). Now we had the luxury of 2000 square feet. But my colleagues and I were anxious to work on a full-fledged campus.

How did we fare with its construction? Before coming to this question, I wish to make a comment. A typical government-supported institution requires funds for its various academic activities as well as for the housing of its staff. Of these, the former is given priority. When the academic needs are met, the funding agency runs out of cash, and the stock response is: ‘We will build staff housing when GOI makes funds available.’ In the case of TIFR, the institute started receiving funds by the mid-1940s, but staff housing had to wait until the mid-1960s.

To avoid getting IUCAA in that situation, I adopted a different policy. I had housing built first and academic activities next. My request to UGC for modest funds to initiate staff housing was accepted, and the so-called phase I was completed in about 20 months. The Director’s residence, ten Type-V and ten Type-IV houses (quarters) were built. At that stage, there was hardly any staff, and I was asked: building staff quarters when there was no staff–was it not a waste of money? My reply was that the empty quarters were to be temporarily used for academic activities. Thus, one quarter was used for the IUCAA library, one for housing IUCAA’s first computer, one for instrumentation, etc. Some quarters were used for housing students and associates–so there was no empty quarter.

Thus, the building programme proceeded as planned. Charles was expecting to complete Phase II by early December. There had been minor hiccoughs but they were sorted out without any difficulty.

But the “unexpected” lurked around the corner. On December 6 came the news that the Babri Mosque was demolished. This event soon led to nationwide disturbances. In Mumbai, they were particularly severe. Even after they subsided, some areas were considered “dangerous” for movement. It so happened that some Muslim artisans, who were needed to put finishing touches on the IUCAA main building, dared not stir out of their residence. Charles and I sent messages to them guaranteeing safety. Finally, they agreed to come–but by then, the calendar had moved to December 26. Having taken stock of the work needed from them, they promised to complete it, even if they had no sleep.

Nor had Charles any sleep on the night of December 27. He wanted to ensure that the decorative stone plating at the entrance was completed to his satisfaction. On my last inspection tour of the campus, I saw him standing at the entrance, checking the work being done.

While we were breathing a sigh of relief, we were in for another possible problem. Two VIPs of our function, Professor Chandrasekhar and Professor Ram Reddy (who had succeeded Yash Pal as Chairman of the UGC), were to travel by air. A lightning strike of pilots of Indian Airlines put a question mark on their participation. However, the resourcefulness shown by IUCAA’s budding travel section made the impossible possible. They arranged for our guests to arrive on an alternate, still-functioning route.

The dedication ceremony went off smoothly, and all of us felt immensely relieved. There were other important events like the annual Foundation Day Lecture, a meeting of the SAC-IUCAA, the establishment of the IUCAA Library, the Computer Centre and the Instrumentation Centre. All concerned staff members were working at a 200% level. I thanked them all and felt confident that the same ‘frontier level’ spirit would drive them to future achievements.

It is here that the senior administrative staff of a scientific institution has the opportunity to show its mettle. The purpose of the administration is not ‘to rule’ but to create an environment in which the scientific pursuits of the institution can be carried out smoothly. The rules and bye-laws are never written in a great deal of detail. Even the clarifying guidelines are often vague enough to allow some flexibility. The administrative staff must see how one can operate within the available flexibility to successfully proceed with the proposed scientific project. Rather than dismiss a proposal by saying, ‘it can’t be done as per allowed guidelines,’ the administrator has to find alternative ways of achieving the desired end within the allowed guidelines. Recall that the dictionary meaning of the word ‘administer’ is ‘to dispense, supply, give, etc..’ Thus, the administrator has to be supportive rather than obstructive.

One important addition I made to the statutes of IUCAA was that of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC-IUCAA). This committee comprises distinguished scientists, five from within India and three from abroad. It is supposed to visit IUCAA once every 2-3 years and evaluate its overall scientific performance. It can suggest new programmes, recommend discontinuing old ones, acquire new facilities, etc. This outside evaluation has proved very beneficial to IUCAA in planning its scientific programmes.

However, ultimately, it is the Director, or the Head of the institution, who must practise full autonomy and take the crucial steps to really ‘direct’ the institution along its proposed path. Often, one hears of complaints of lack of autonomy, whereas the real complaint can be traced to an unwillingness to practise the autonomy that is already available. Many universities suffer because their VCs have willingly surrendered their powers to the bureaucrats within the university or those in the government. The fact that the university registrar often becomes the centre of power is an ample indication of the misplaced priorities between the academic vs administrative battles. If the university has been created to nurture and disseminate knowledge rather than encourage the growth of political centres of power, then academics must have priority over administration. Homi Bhabha made a great contribution by underlining this premise in the institutions he created.

However, TIFR later discontinued the programme because very few senior faculty members liked lecturing to students. Some of them looked upon teaching as an indication of failure to do research. Exceptions to this feeling were shared by very few, like Udgaonkar, Jha, Baba, and myself, who argued that teaching improves one’s own perspectives on the subject. We gave examples of distinguished scientists like Hoyle, Wheeler, Feynman, and Rees, who enjoyed teaching–but to no avail! After a trial for two years, TIFR unilaterally terminated the arrangement, citing a lack of faculty support. Hence, when I approached Pune University requesting twenty acres of land, the response was negative. There was a reaction that TIFR got our land and then abandoned us! Both Yash Pal (Chairman of the UGC) and I tried to convince the Vice Chancellor that our proposal was sincere and that having IUCAA on the university campus would bring many benefits, but to no avail. Although the VC was friendly to the IUCAA programme, he was under local pressure not to agree to our request.

Having reached an impasse, I sought an extreme way out. Writing to the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, I appealed to him to help solve our land problem. I did not expect any response and was not surprised when there was none. In the meantime, I prepared myself for a lecture visit to France, which had been arranged long before I got involved with IUCAA matters. I was to spend two months as a Visiting Professor at the College de France in Paris.

The day before I was to leave for Paris, I received an urgent telephone call from the Mantralaya, the seat of the Government of Maharashtra. The Chief Minister wished to meet me: could I come and see him right away? Wondering what it was all about, I turned up at the Chief Minister’s office. I knew the CM, Shankar Rao Chavan, was a good administrator. He immediately came to the point. The Prime Minister’s office had requested him to help me get a suitable plot of land for IUCAA. How much did I need? Where did I want it to be? I supplied the relevant details, whereupon he smiled and said: “Done!”

He called in his IAS Secretary, Mr DasGupta, and introduced me to him. “Mr DasGupta will pursue the matter until it is complete. He will be in touch with you.”

So, the letter to the PM had not been in vain! On July 19, 1988, Mr DasGupta called me to his office and smiled as he handed me a copy of the Government Resolution assigning 20 acres of land on the university campus. I told him that on that date, I had turned 50.

A very welcome birthday present!

I later learned that the primary motivator for the IUCAA project at the Prime Minister’s Office was the PM’s Principal Secretary, B.G. Deshmukh, who was keen to see meaningful development coming to Pune.

Two incidents are worth recording. I received an urgent phone call from Naresh when I was in Paris. Unlike his usual steady humour, I sensed that he was agitated. He had just seen off Charles Correa on the train to Mumbai after a futile visit to the proposed IUCAA site. Charles wanted to have a feel of the site so that he could visualize how the building complex would look. Afterwards, Naresh took Charles on a courtesy call to the VC. When Charles mentioned how much he looked forward to working on such a pleasant site, the VC burst out saying that there was no such possibility and he should look elsewhere! The outburst completely stunned both Naresh and Charles… setting them wondering about CM’s commitment. “Let us drown our shock in something hard,” said Naresh and entered a good hotel…only to learn that because of a Muslim holiday, no alcohol was to be served that day!

As they say in a Sanskrit shloka, misfortunes never come alone.

DasGupta clarified the situation. The University would be informed only after fait accompli.

The fait accompli was televised. Sharad Pawar had succeeded Shankarrao Chavan, in a political reshuffle. To show that he meant business, he had the local TV channel cover the ‘event’ of the CM handing over documents of IUCAA to its Director. Only the previous day I had attended an informal discussion with a largely hostile university faculty on whether or not IUCAA should be welcomed. A vociferous minority’s opinion was against welcoming IUCAA, although the silent majority was for giving it a try. Of the former group, many would assure me that the Government would not allow any ‘outsiders.’ Although I knew that the government had already made the decision to welcome IUCAA, I did not mention it, as I expected that the announcement would come from the government, as it did the following day.

As a Founder Director, I had many challenges to face.

First and foremost, the setting up of IUCAA required formal approval by the Government of India. A Memorandum of Understanding was to be approved, specifying the objectives of the proposed centre, key guidelines on how it was to be run, how it would be funded, what its organizational structure would be, etc. As the proposed parent body, the UGC had to take the initiative in this matter.

A practical question to be settled was where the Centre would be located. The Project Report approved by the UGC specified that the area needed for the centre’s activities was twenty acres. I had to find a suitable location in Pune.

The Project Report had estimated the building requirements—the actual ‘what goes where’ would require a good architect. I had to find one and get the choice approved by the UGC.

IUCAA was to be registered as a ‘Registered Society’ by the Registrar of Societies operating in the region where the Centre would be located.

Last but not least, the Centre’s Bye-Laws had to be framed. These would determine how the Centre was to be run.

I had been alerted by the Director of the Nuclear Science Centre that all these ‘hurdles’ took time and might easily take more than a year to cross! I found, however, that personal contacts help, as a few examples will suffice!

The approval by the GOI was to be given by the Human Resource Development Ministry. The Secretary in charge of the HRD ministry was Anil Bordia, a senior IAS officer from the Rajasthan cadre. By a happy chance, he had become known to my father. In fact, when I mentioned his name to my father, he recalled that when he was the Chairman of the Rajasthan Public Service Commission, he had attended a meeting in Delhi, and at that time, his Liasion Officers were a young couple from Rajasthan–Mr and Mrs Bordia. Anil Bordia was happy to recall that occasion when I conveyed my father’s greetings to him. This circumstance helped my interaction with him. As IUCAA’s case was under his consideration, I could phone him at home to find out how the case was progressing. In early November 1988, Anil telephoned me to say that the HRD approval had come through.

GOI approval had to be followed up by registration of the Centre under the Societies Act. For this formality, we had to submit a copy of the GOI approval in writing. Aware that the Nuclear Science Centre had to wait for several months to get the registration from the Registrar of Societies in Delhi, Naresh Dadhich and I called his office and requested him to clear our case fast. The official assured us of prompt attention as he was aware that IUCAA project was of national importance. “I am proud that such a project is coming to Pune! Bring me the written approval by GOI, and I will clear the case in forty-eight hours.” He was true to his word. We had the Registration within two days.

Personal contact proved useful in selecting the architect. I had known the famous architect Charles Correa for about two years. Although he operated from Mumbai and Goa, he had international contacts. He had a building under construction in New York, had been a Nehru Visiting Professor at Cambridge and had received a prestigious award from Japan. We had met and chatted informally on 2 to 3 occasions when I found common interests in astronomy, ancient Indian traditions and history.

A person of such wide interests and experience would be an ideal architect for IUCAA. But would he be interested in such a modest enterprise? I discussed this with Naresh at a dinner, and he strongly supported asking Charles. I went to the phone and dialed his number. Fortunately, he was at home. He was thrilled at the proposal. He was just completing a project on ancient Indian astronomy in Jaipur and would be delighted to handle one on modern astronomy. The UGC normally expected a government architect to be chosen. But with Charles being interested, Yash Pal readily agreed. Incidentally, it is believed that private architects are more expensive than Government ones. Charles Correa charged 5% of the project costs as his fee. Additionally, he had professional construction consultants supervise the work, and their fee was 2.5%. Thus, the total was 7.5%. As against that, the Central Public Works Department of GOI charged 13% for similar services!

I should mention that the supervision of construction is a critical job, and it was ably exercised by Mr Kumar Shrikhande, a professional who had earlier worked on DAE projects. He got along well with Charles on our project.

There was a mixed reaction to my decision to leave TIFR to set up IUCAA. The optimists welcomed it, saying that it was a step in the right direction. The pessimists felt that I was taking a grave risk in leaving a well-run institute to start up something out of nothing–a venture that may fail. I recalled a similar spectrum of opinion in 1972 when I had planned to leave Cambridge to return to India. Similar to that occasion, I decided to take the plunge. In fact, when I had planned to return to India in 1972, some friends had suggested that I should set up an institution with the sponsorship of the Government of India. Having seen at close hands the trials and tribulations of Fred Hoyle while setting up the astronomy institute in Cambridge, as well as hearing the gory tales of government bureaucracy in India, I had baulked at the idea then. Nor had I been a believer in applying precious national resources to create institutions to boost one’s ego. An institution should be created only if a national need is felt for it. Such a need was being felt in 1987-88, while none had been perceived in 1971-72, at least in my personal recollection. Also, in the earlier period, I was in my early thirties, whereas in the later one, I was moving into the fifties. The priorities of a scientist when he is young and in the high-momentum phase of research are, or at least ought to be, different from those when he is more advanced in age. It was thus a different ball game for me in the late eighties when I chose to leave TIFR.

A second centre was on the cards, related to astronomy and astrophysics. I was destined to be involved with it!

To briefly describe my background, after a fruitful career as a founder member of the Institute of Astronomy (IOA) in Cambridge, I returned to India in 1972 to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). I had joined the institute with a mandate to grow its activities in theoretical astrophysics, and over the sixteen or so years there, I had the satisfaction of seeing that objective accomplished. Although I was happy with my work, other issues were beginning to weigh on my mind, issues that were to take me on an adventurous journey away from TIFR.

TIFR had been set up by Homi Bhabha to help create and strengthen the base for fundamental research in the country. The expectation was that scientists trained here would contribute to applied research in related fields and to universities by enriching their faculties. The first happened to some extent, e.g., through the setting up of major scientific establishments like the BARC, SAMIR, NCST, etc., by the talent drawn from TIFR. The benefits expected by the university system, however, did not materialize. Although in 1946, when the TIFR was set up, the conditions in a typical university were academically reasonable, these declined sharply in the 1960s. For various reasons, including this circumstance, there was no significant transfer of faculty from TIFR to Universities. Except for the School of Mathematics, there was no significant collaborative venture between the TIFR and Bombay University.

Indeed, in the 1980s, there was a growing realization in my mind that there was a need for centres of excellence exclusively within the university sector. Indeed, the parent body of universities in India, the University Grants Commission (UGC), had appreciated the need and, to address this issue had decided to create its own centres of excellence, the ‘Inter-University Centres’ (IUCs).

I saw here a fresh opportunity to revive astronomy and astrophysics within the university sector. Could we create a centre that acts as a resource not only for material facilities but also for intellectual stimulation for the faculty and students of universities? Although the projected setting up of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope near Pune was one reason for bringing IUCAA into existence, even without it, enough exciting challenges existed. Challenges that I was missing at the TIFR.

My brainstorming discussions with scientific colleagues, starting with Naresh Dadhich, a general relativist at Pune University, were productive enough to interest the UGC in the possibility of creating an IUC in the field of astronomy and astrophysics. As a result, the UGC asked me to submit a proposal for such a centre to initiate any executive action. I did that and hoped that the effort would lead somewhere.

The newly launched institution was a unique one of its kind and would soon be creating waves in the world astronomical community. Not surprisingly, because of its long name, it soon became known by its acronym ‘IUCAA.’ Its reputation grew rapidly, and soon it became known internationally. As a scientist associated with IUCAA from the beginning, I am often asked how it came about. So here is a detailed account of IUCAA’s genesis and early life.

In the 1940s, it was becoming clear that the British rule of India would end soon, and the new nation would face several challenges. On August 15, 1947, when the British left the country to fend for itself, it was important that an enlightened leadership took over the task of guiding the new nation. Fortunately, the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, was aware that science and technology would play a key role in the nation's development. So, he took leading scientists and technocrats in confidence while making key decisions that made it possible for the new nation to catch up with the developed nations. Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and University Grants Commission (UGC) are some of the important outcomes of those early days. Homi Bhabha, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, C.V. Raman, M.S. Swaminathan, D.S. Kothari, and Vikram Sarabhai were some of the leading lights. The outcome of Nehru’s vision was the growth of research institutions and centres of excellence under Government Departments like DAE, CSIR, etc., which led to a boost in scientific research.

A glance at the history of post-World War II shows that while several countries gained independence from colonial domination, only India created and sustained a dynamic feeling for science and technology (S&T). The S&T infrastructure created in India in the 1940s has helped strengthen advances in various fields, such as space technology, agriculture, medicine, etc.

While creating this infrastructure, it was hoped that the university system in India would also grow and participate in the S&T progress. The universities in advanced countries serve as the main caterers of higher education. Universities like Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Princeton have successfully combined the teaching of students with advanced research. Good students are attracted to a research career if they see good teachers at a university campus. Also, interacting with students helps teachers bring freshness to their research. Many successful universities abroad have managed to create and maintain academic excellence. These universities are centres of excellence not only in technical subjects but also in humanities, arts, classics etc. In fact, Jawaharlal Nehru had hoped that this would happen when S&T launched in India. The headquarters of UGC in New Delhi have on display the following statement by Nehru:

“A university stands for humanism, for tolerance, for reason, for the adventure of ideas and for the search of truth. It stands for the onward march of the human race towards ever higher objectives. If the universities discharge their duties adequately, then it is well within the nation and the people".

While Nehru was aware of the role of universities in the building of a nation, several reasons, such as shortage of manpower and funds, political interference, compromising with quality, etc., made it difficult to achieve spectacular growth in the university sector. Ironically, the emergence of autonomous centres of excellence in various subjects diverted attention away from universities, creating problems for both. The autonomous centres, being isolated from university students, complained of a shortage of good students coming to them while the typical university student missed the excitement of research in his university department. What was needed and was missing was a close connection between a university and an autonomous centre of excellence.

However, if we try to create such a centre exclusively for a university, we encounter two main problems. Firstly, if such a centre is provided for one particular university, other universities would demand such centres too. It will be prohibitively expensive to satisfy them all! Secondly, a typical university will not have enough users for the facility, which will result in it remaining idle most of the time. Is there a way out of this conundrum?

We now look at an example in the USA that has worked. In astronomy, a sophisticated telescope plays a key role in bringing fresh data on the universe. In the 1970s, a state-of-the-art 4-metre telescope was expected to be launched in an observatory in Tucson, Arizona. While several universities were interested in such a telescope, its basic cost and regular maintenance were too high for a typical university. There was also the issue that if the telescope could function on, say, 200 nights in the year, the users from a single university would not have sufficient observing programs to keep it busy. To address these issues, a concerned group of universities (some twenty of them) formed an “Association for Research in Astronomy” (AURA) to acquire and control the telescope. The costs were shared by members of AURA. Thus, if a university were expected to keep the telescope busy for 20 nights a year, it would contribute 10% of the total budgetary cost. Therefore, the telescope is affordable for each participant university, and they keep it busy on all of its useable nights.

Operation of an advanced but expensive facility on a shared basis has become common in scientific research, not just in astronomy but also in other subjects. For example, the particle accelerator at CERN is used by several nations on a cost-shared basis. The university sector in India has adopted this modus operandi successfully, as we will describe in our next blog.

Newtonian laws 

An excellent example of how this process operates is seen in the way the Newtonian law of gravitation described planetary motion. Planets (apart from the Earth) Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn had been known for centuries. An addition to the list was made in 1781 when William Herschel discovered a new planet, which was named ‘Uranus.’ The observations of the planet over a few decades determined its trajectory around the Sun.  It was expected that the trajectory would follow Newton’s laws of gravitation and motion.  While there was broad agreement between theory and observations, there were small discrepancies that were worrying. There were three possible conclusions. (1) The Newtonian laws were wrong, (2) The observations were in error, or (3) There was a new feature in the whole picture that had been ignored.

In the 1840s, two young astronomers, John Couch Adams from Cambridge and Urbain J.J. le Verrier from Paris, independently analyzed the data to conclude that the observations indicated the presence of a new planet near Uranus. The planet was looked for and found.  It was named ‘Neptune’.  The conclusion of this episode was thus another feather in the cap of the Newtonian system.

But that was not the end of the story! By the 1860s, a new problem surfaced. Mercury, the planet nearest to the Sun, showed a progress shift in the direction of the nearest point of its orbit, called the perihelion. The rate of shift was indeed very small…about  43 arc seconds in 100 years. [One arc second is the angle that is 3600^th part of one degree.] By then, le Verrier was a senior astronomer in France, and he took it as a challenge.  From his earlier success with Neptune, he sought to explain Mercury’s anomalous behavior as the result of a small intra-mercurial planet, which he named Vulcan. This time, he did not succeed…no such planet was found.  The discrepancy remained, and it was resolved only in 1915.  The general theory of relativity had the correct answer.  But of the three alternatives mentioned earlier, it was the first that was operative!

Arp’s crusade

With these examples as background, we now describe a modern case relating to the anomalous findings of Halton C. (Chip) Arp.  Arp began his career as an observational astronomer and as a former student of Edwin Hubble. Hubble’s work on galaxies, leading to the notion of the expanding universe, was considered the basis of modern cosmology. [See the first blog in this series.] Arp, in his own right, soon achieved a reputation for images of galaxies. His catalog of peculiar galaxies is recognized as an outstanding source of information about the extragalactic universe.

However, while carrying out these studies, Arp began to notice certain ‘anomalous’ cases. See the photographs for a couple of examples. In a typical case, you see two galaxies merging into each other or two galaxies connected by a filament of gas. If an astronomer looked at such a case, he would conclude that these galaxies are neighbours. But when the astronomer checks their redshifts, he would notice the anomaly. Hubble’s law would require the redshifts to be equal. But in some cases reported by Arp, they turned out to be different. 

Arp began to get more such anomalous cases, and the explanation of such cases implied that Hubble’s law did not apply to them.  To understand some cases, one could use the ‘escape route’ as follows.  When one sees two galaxies together (as seen in the figures), they are not physically connected but happen to be projected one on top of the other. Such an explanation would be plausible if the background of farther galaxies were dense.  In most cases, however, the background was sparsely populated, thus rendering the explanation rather implausible.

As Arp kept on finding such anomalous examples, the conventional cosmologists began to feel ‘uncomfortable.’ So much so that they began to find faults in Arp’s findings. There came a stage when leading astronomy journals began rejecting Arp’s technical papers. In the 1980s, Arp was denied access to important telescopes, including the Palomar telescope, where he had been a leading observer. The reason for the ban was that he was getting results that did not make sense! The implication was that the scientific establishment had made up its mind that Hubble’s law was absolutely sound and any result contrary to it was wrong.

The treatment meted out to Arp showed that the establishment in modern times is qualitatively no different from that in Copernicus’s time six centuries ago. There are no inquisitions to impose conformism with the establishment, but in present times, the message is loud and clear:  a funding agency will not support a nonconformist project. There are other examples where the proposer of a project ran into a dead end, as Arp did. Geoffrey Burbidge, a senior astronomer, recalled that his proposal to test the claim that redshifts of quasars are periodic was rejected. One referee of the project said that no doctoral work should be done on the project. A second referee said: nobody is going to work on this project because it is absurd!

This vicious circle is typical of the reason why anti-establishment ideas have not prospered. 

I can do no better than quote a story going around in the corridors of the establishment. Once God applied for research funds to carry out studies of creation. The referees appointed to evaluate his proposal gave three reasons for rejecting it: (1) It had been a long time since he last worked on the topic. (2) No one else had been able to repeat his experiment. (3) All his work to date was not published in a refereed research journal but was published in a book.

History tells us how, in the times of Copernicus and Galileo, the confirmed belief was that the Earth is fixed and the Sun and the planets go around it.  The Church subscribed to it, and it was heresy to say that the Earth moves around a fixed Sun. The book written by Copernicus was banned, and anybody supporting it was subject to trial by the Inquisition.  Galileo was a strong supporter and was made to recant. While he officially did so, he kept his belief in Copernican theory.  It is said that when he recanted, he muttered, " Eppour si mouve ...But it moves". 

Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam had asked a question that historians of science have discussed from time to time. The background to the question is outlined first.

The scientific history of the Indian subcontinent, by no means complete, suggests that from the Vedic times about two millennia ago, India was perceived as a storehouse of knowledge. Scholars from neighbouring countries visited the subcontinent for consultation, translation of manuscripts, etc. What may be called the golden age of Indian science is sandwiched between the works of Aryabhata (5th Century A.D.) and Bhaskara ( 12^th Century A.D.).

However, afterwards, the scientific momentum fizzled out. There were no major developments in this field, while the growth picked up on the European front. Copernicus and Galileo, followed by Newton, Kelvin, Faraday, and Maxwell, are some of the leaders whose discoveries led to the Industrial Revolution in Europe.

The question we wish to raise is: Why was there no industrial revolution on the Indian subcontinent?

Salam’s comment

Nobel Laureate Abdus Salam expressed the above question by drawing attention to the following history.   He mentioned that the Taj Mahal in Agra and St Paul’s Cathedral in London represented epitomes of architecture in India and Europe, built around the same time.  Taking this as standard, one could see that shortly afterwards Europe witnessed the onset of mathematics and science through the works of Fermat, Newton, Leibnitz, Bernoulli, and many others. In India, however, there was not a single person to carry the mandate of Bhaskara.

Royal patronage for work in science and mathematics, which was available in Europe, was lacking in India. The Sultans and Maharajas did encourage and support culture in various forms, such as music, art, architecture, etc., but there was no example of royal support for a mathematician.

In addition to the royal families in European countries, highly placed barons and wealthy patrons of the arts also provided financial support for scientific research. We do not have a single example of such support in India.        

An important consequence of this lack of native support was that it led to rulers in India ordering and buying guns, strategic instruments etc., from European rulers. Why did they not set up their own manufacturing and R&D units?

Incidentally, it is said that the British took control of the Indian subcontinent by employing a ‘divide and rule’ policy.  While politically, this may be pertinent, it ignores the important role of advanced weapons and the communication facilities like railways.

Science vs. superstitions 

The episode of Karmanasha Bridge illustrates the difference in attitudes.  In the eighteenth century, it was felt that building a bridge on the Karmanasha river near Kashi (Banaras) would be highly desirable from commercial, social and infrastructural perspectives.  However, the local talent could not erect the bridge: it would collapse while under construction.  After this happened 3-4 times, the Local Administration sought advice from “expert astrologers” who diagnosed the cause as arising from the ill effect of the local deity. It recommended conducting a religious ceremony accompanied by a generous distribution of alms at the site.  The demand for funds for this purpose reached the headquarters in Pune and the desk of Nana Phadnis.  Nana was a practical man and had no sympathy for superstitions.  What did he do?  

He approached Baker, a trained English engineer in Calcutta, for advice and action.  Baker visited the site with his instruments. He diagnosed that the bridge kept collapsing because no attention had been paid to its foundations.  He got the water pumped out and created a firm base for the bridge.  He left it standing–in fact, many bridges built by the British two centuries ago are still standing! 

Indeed, science made progress on two fronts. On the ‘pure’ front, it concentrated its efforts on the ‘what’, ’when’ and ‘why’ questions posed to Nature. The answers gained often led to the creation of new devices that made life more comfortable. This ‘applied’ side prompted the Industrial Revolution.

Why did we miss the bus?  

In the West, except for the well-to-do, living conditions were hard. Bitter winters, severe epidemics, and internecine wars took their toll. So, there was an incentive for the citizens to look for better locations. This was the incentive for colonization. When science and technology provided means for travel and better living conditions for those who took the risk, colonization, in turn, encouraged the Industrial Revolution.

In the East, by contrast, relatively mild weather and fewer problems for survival made travel less attractive. Also, religious sanctions forbade leaving one’s country. Thus, scholars from China, Persia, Greece and Arabia visited India… but there was hardly any reverse traffic. These social reasons also contributed to stagnating the growth of science in India.      

It has also been pointed out that religions followed in India were generally tolerant. They emphasized the importance of simplicity and the need to live on very simple needs. An attitude of this kind is socially admired, no doubt. However, it does not provide any incentive for material progress. So when the bus for the Industrial Revolution passed by the Indian subcontinent, there were no takers for a ride.

“Meet our bright boy from India, Bernard… Jayant!  You have just seen him on the screen”, said Barbara to me. And I realised why his face looked familiar. I was looking at the villain of the movie ‘The Man who knew too much’. The movie starring James  Stewart and Doris Day had turned out to be a Hitchcock classic. One of its memorable features was the song “Que Sera Sera”. Meaning “whatever will be will be” it was the response of a mother to her growing daughter’s apprehensions  about her future.

Bernard Miles had been a good friend of Fred Hoyle. As I later learnt from Barbara Hoyle, Bernard Miles was not only a good actor but he had also contributed to the cultural revival of London after the end of World War II. This included the renaissance of the Mermaid Theatre on the South Bank of River Thames. 

There used to be a flourishing Mermaid Theatre here in Shakespeare’s time. Over the years it declined and perished. To restore its former glory was one of the aims of its present owner Bernard Miles. The new building incorporated the latest architectural norms. Even more importantly, the building would encourage the experimental theatre. One of his ideas for theatrical experiment was to have a science fiction play for schoolchildren at the Mermaid. When I met him in the vicinity of Mermaid he was trying to persuade Fred Hoyle to write such a story or play which could be shown in the Mermaid in the next Easter vacation. 

The Black Cloud

Bernard Miles knew of the highly successful novel “The Black Cloud” written by Fred. Astronomers in the 1950s had evidence for the presence of neutral hydrogen in interstellar space. At the time Hoyle wrote a paper conjecturing that there may be clouds containing molecular gas and that they may be detected by special telescopes sensitive to radiation emitted at millimeter wavelengths. By and large the astronomical community ridiculed the idea and Hoyle found his paper rejected by leading astronomy and physics journals.  The idea was not liked by the Establishment, which believed that no chemical structure beyond neutral hydrogen could form and survive in the very low density interstellar space. 

When he encountered such resistance, Hoyle took what may be called a ‘diversionary’ action. He wrote a novel called The Black Cloud: a  science fiction story wherein the notion of giant molecular clouds played a key role.

About a decade later, the millimeter wavelength telescopes began to contribute evidence confirming Hoyle’s conjecture. Apart from his very first venture in science fiction writing, Fred had written novels, short stories and plots for TV serials. Now, Bernard Miles was trying to get Fred to write a science fiction play for teenage school children. For, he had a highly original plan in mind! 

Rockets in Ursa Major

A few weeks on, I was caught in my Cambridge routine, when postal delivery brought me a colourful pamphlet and a forwarding note. The latter said simply : ‘I started the programme at the start of Easter Vacation in schools and it is going well. But I very much look forward to your presence and comments. Please see the details attached. Will see you with Fred, Barbara and Liz…  

Que sera sera…with greetings, –Bernard’

The details gave the date, time and pertinent information. Barbara had received similar information and we fixed the details of the day between us. The show was to begin at Mermaid 6pm and end at 8pm, followed by dinner in the theatre restaurant. A combined ticket for show + dinner was available at a reduced rate. (Of course we got it free as we were invited guests.)

There was a huge crowd mainly of school children with at least one guardian testifying to the success of the venture. Easter holidays in England can be of 4-6 weeks duration. Weather at that time being “uncertain” open air holiday activities are not as common as in the summer season. Thus theatre shows, cinema halls, exhibitions etc are more in demand. Additionally, the Mermaid show was advertised with great flair as the first ever science fiction show presented by a famous astronomer.

The theme of the story described how spaceships sent to explore life outside the Earth were lost except for one called DSP15. This space ship returned and was picked up by space scientists in Mildenhall, England. There was no living creature on it but a message scratched by its captain: “If this space ship returns to Earth, then mankind is in deadly peril…God help you”.

With this sinister beginning, the play started. The story combined adventure with some up-to-date ideas in stellar evolution leading to the end of a bright supergiant star called Betelgeuse in a supernova explosion. The star is normally seen in the night sky in the direction of the Ursa Major Constellation. The play itself was called ‘Rockets in Ursa Major’ and its main character was an extra terrestrial called ‘Betelgeuse the Buccaneer’. A humorous addition to the plot was provided by a take off on Harold Macmillan, the then (1962) Prime Minister of Great Britain.  

There was audience participation too, adding to the informality of the occasion. I am sure, Bernard Miles felt that his foray into the future, “Que sera sera”  got an overwhelmingly positive response. As for me, I realized that science fiction can be a good resource for getting the younger generation attracted to science. Later, when I was back in India, I would write science fiction stories in my mother tongue Marathi.

Although the ticket entitled us to the meal served in the Mermaid dining room, we did not avail of it as we had to catch a fast train to Cambridge. I had been wondering if we would get any food on arrival in Cambridge. “Que sera sera” I said to myself. I got the answer in due course! Bernard had asked us for the details of the train which we were taking out of King’s Cross Station. In due course the train rolled into the assigned platform. After we boarded it and settled down in an empty compartment, a messenger came looking for the Hoyles. He produced a rich hamper containing cold supper. 

“Que Sera Sera!” I said to myself.

A second major advance in astronomy was the introduction of radio astronomy. Just as stars and galaxies were known as radiation emitters in the optical range of wavelengths, are there objects in the universe emitting radio waves?  Some pioneering experiments in the 1930s and World War II work on radars helped astronomers construct radio telescopes in the 1940s and 1950s. Major centres of radio astronomy came up in Cambridge and Manchester in the U.K., in Sydney, Australia and Caltech, U.S.A.  Their findings were generally unexpected and led to arguments and controversies.

A major source of disagreement was whether the typical radio source was a galactic star or a galaxy in its own right. Martin Ryle and his radio astronomy group in the Cavendish Labs at Cambridge believed that the sources were radio stars in our Milky Way Galaxy, while Tommy Gold, an optical astronomer, supported the extragalactic option.  The controversy between the two astronomers intensified to such an extent that Gold was banned from the Cavendish seminars. He, however, had the last word when optical studies conclusively proved that powerful radio sources like Cygnus A are extragalactic.

Gold was one of the three authors of the “Steady State Theory” (SST) of cosmology, the other two being Hermann Bondi and Fred Hoyle. Perhaps that was why Ryle was highly critical of SST and hoped to disprove it through his radio surveys. There was also a cultural bias: many scientists in the West naturally believed in a universe that had been created a finite time ago in a “big bang.” To them, SST was unacceptable!

In June 1960, I enrolled myself as a research scholar under the guidance of Fred Hoyle at Cambridge, whose lectures on cosmology I had found exciting and inspiring. At my first discussion meeting with him, he laid before me a list of interesting topics, suggesting that I might choose one for my Ph.D. research. When I looked at the ‘research menu,’ I was a little surprised, for there was no mention of cosmology in it. I mentioned this to him, and he clarified: “Work on cosmology is indeed interesting and worth doing, but I do not think a fresh research student should be involved in a problem that can be controversial.” I was a little disappointed but could appreciate his reason.     

However, new developments intervened shortly before the year was out! 

Ryle vs Hoyle

In September 1960, Fred Hoyle went to the US for a sabbatical visit. In his absence, what would I do?  Very thoughtfully, he arranged for me to visit the relativity group at King’s College London once a week. The convener of the group was Felix Pirani, whom Fred had requested to act as my guide. Felix organized relativity lectures and seminars on Thursdays and suggested that I make day trips to London on those days. He very kindly provided me with a grant to cover such visits. The experts lecturing in  Pirani’s included Roger Penrose, Ray Sachs, Josh Goldberg and occasionally Herman Bondi. Discussions with them certainly widened my horizons.

In the meantime, I chose a problem with spinning universes from Fred's research menu. Because in standard Big Bang cosmology, the universe began in an unphysical state, could one modify the model to avoid the ‘singular’ beginning? Some cosmologists advocated a spinning universe. Planets, stars, and galaxies spin: why not the universe? So Fred had asked me to pursue spinning universes.

Fred returned to Cambridge in late December, and I made a presentation on my work over the course of three months. I could show that my studies of spinning universes, as claimed by some theoreticians, would not work. Period‼  Interesting though this conclusion was, it raised the question of what other problem I should tackle for my Ph.D.  At this stage, Fred replied: “We will think about that soon enough, but here is a problem that has come up to me as a challenge. Have a look.”   

And he proceeded to show me some newspaper cuttings.  They were from leading papers in London, describing a press conference by Ryle.  The tabloids, as expected, had gone to town with headlines proclaiming proof of God and the origin of the universe.  But even the Times, the Telegraph and the Guardian had given the news the priority of front page news.  Shorn of the hyperbole, the news was that Martin Ryle and his radio group had claimed to have destroyed the SST on the basis of their radio surveys.  The challenge which Hoyle had referred to was directed at him. How was he going to defend his theory?  

Over the years, Ryle’s group had been conducting systematic surveys of radio sources. With improved technology, the surveys picked up fainter and fainter sources.  Since the more remote a source, the fainter it would be, it was claimed that all these sources were far away.  Also, when a telescope spots a remote source, it sees it not at the epoch of observation, but at the epoch when light has left the source.  Therefore, Ryle & Co claimed that their survey gave important information on what the state of the universe was like in the remote past. 

One such information was on the density of the universe.  The Cambridge finding was that there were far too many remote sources–implying that the density of matter in the past was more than what it is today.  Since the SST was specific in claiming that the universe is unchanging on the long timescale (as implied in the adjective “steady state”), Ryle concluded that his data disproved the steady state theory.  Hoyle took it as a personal challenge and wanted to counter Ryle’s charges. However, he wisely kept away from the media, and disclosed his intention to reply to Ryle’s claim at the next general meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS), where Ryle was formally presenting his claim. The RAS holds its general meeting on the second Friday of every month. The meeting has a history of debates and controversies, and the one scheduled for the 10th of February was expected to generate a few fireworks. 

Realizing that the above schedule gave him very little time to prepare his counter to Ryle, Hoyle suggested that I might help in the process. There were difficulties, however.  To prepare a counter, we needed Ryle’s data.  Ryle was known to be secretive with his data. After some persuasion, he agreed to meet us in the Tea Room of the Cavendish.  There, he produced a sheet of paper with a graph of the number-flux density relation. It was a crudely hand-drawn affair, certainly not one that would be acceptable in a research journal. Handing us the paper, he remarked that that was the best he could do. 

We then used two assumptions: one, that the probability of a galaxy becoming a radio source increased with its age, and two, that galaxies were not homogeneously distributed in the universe at all scales as assumed by theoreticians. We showed that gigantic super-clusters and voids on the scale of 150 million light years would introduce large fluctuations in the Ryle-type predictions. 

In short, if the universe is inhomogeneous on such a scale, the entire methodology of using surveys to test cosmological models becomes meaningless.

I was becoming relaxed, feeling that Fred had some strong counterpunches to deliver on Friday.  But not for long! Fred broke the news: On the 10th of February in the afternoon, he was committed to delivering a public lecture in a London college. This commitment had been made long before and could not be changed.  So he would not be present at the RAS meeting.  Instead, he proposed that I should give our point of view after Ryle made his presentation. 

I was shattered! I had no public speaking experience, nor had I ever debated on any scientific issue. Besides, the ‘opposition’ was well-versed in the issue and would use their experience to kill any criticism. 

I mentioned all these points to Fred, showing my reluctance to speak at the RAS.  He dissuaded me by saying that this occasion might be a turning point in my life,  providing me with fresh experience. As for facing an experienced and hostile team, he said, “As you are presenting the argument backed by sound mathematics, you need not worry about the experience of the opposition.”  He assured me that Hermann Bondi, Secretary to RAS, would be there and help if I got stuck at any point.  So I finally agreed!  When leaving his presence, I did well to remember his advice:  “You are given 10 minutes for your talk–make sure that you will say all the necessary facts in 8 minutes.”

Thus, after Ryle’s talk on his work at the RAS meeting, Bondi, followed by me, commented. When I began my talk, all my earlier nervousness vanished. Thanks to my time planning, I delivered it before the 8-minute barrier was reached.  

When the talk was over, there was some discussion, after which the President proposed a vote of thanks and especially mentioned my participation.

So all is well that ends well!  Walking down Piccadilly towards the Green Park tube station, I recalled Fred Hoyle’s intention to keep me away from controversies!    

In 1930, an Indian student sailing to England on his way to Cambridge for higher studies started thinking about the following problem: “Do the electrons in a degenerate state move according to Newton’s laws, or do they move according to the special theory of relativity?” That student's name was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

When one travelled by boat to England in those days, one got a lot of free time.  Normally, travellers spent it eating, drinking, reading novels or playing games like cards, table tennis or chess. But Chandrasekhar was absorbed in working out the mathematical details of the above question. As in the analogy of the cup being filled with water, he realised that if the electron energy level rises to a very high level because of their being stuffed in a limited space, the electrons will tend to move very much faster, with some of them approaching the speed of light.  

Fowler had taken it for granted that the speed of electrons would follow Newton’s laws of motion.  But with the speed of electrons approaching the speed of light, Chandrasekhar felt that special relativity should be used.  

Later, after going to Cambridge, Chandrasekhar kept working on this problem.  By 1935, he had some important results. They could be stated in brief as follows:  

• The higher the mass of the star, the higher the temperature at its centre.  

• The higher the temperature at the centre, the larger the velocity of electrons there.  Hence, in a star of higher mass, the electrons will tend to move at speeds close to the speed of light.  

• Therefore, in the case of more massive stars, the pressure inside should not be computed as per Newtonian laws of motion, as was done by Fowler, but as per the laws of special relativity.  

• When we apply the new laws, we find that only stars of mass below a critical limit can get the advantage of degenerate pressure.  Stars with mass above this limit cannot call upon degenerate pressure for their equilibrium.  This critical limit of mass is 1.44 M_ʘ, where M_ʘ is the mass of the Sun.  All the observed white dwarfs must, therefore, have masses below this critical limit computed by Chandrasekhar.  Because stars more massive than this limit cannot attain equilibrium, such stars will contract under their gravitational force.  

Chandrasekhar sent his results to the Royal Astronomical Society for publication.  (Chandrasekhar now was not a student, but a Fellow of Trinity College.)  He was invited to present his results in a monthly meeting of the Society, held on the second Friday of every month.  In such a meeting, which lasts about an hour and a half to two hours, a few invited astronomers present their new results to others.  Experienced astronomers, as well as those entering the field, are present on such occasions.  Often, there are controversies to enliven them, such as the famous debates between Milne and Eddington, Hoyle and Ryle.  The meeting of January 11, 1935 was also destined to be a memorable one.  

Kameshwar Wali, the biographer of Chandrasekhar has described the event as recalled by Chandrasekhar.  The story is briefly as follows: 

The father of the science of stellar structure, Eddington, was himself a Fellow of Trinity College.  What was his reaction to Chandrasekhar’s work?  

On the night of January 10, 1935, Eddington and Chandrasekhar met at dinner at the High Table in Trinity College. Eddington knew about Chandrasekhar’s work and that he was presenting it at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) the following day.  

“I have asked the Secretary of the Society to give you extra time to speak.”  Eddington himself told Chandrasekhar.  Chandrasekhar thanked him, thinking that Eddington supported his point of view.  

But the situation was the exact opposite!  Eddington was in total disagreement with Chandrasekhar’s conclusions!  He did not disclose to Chandrasekhar that he, too, would be speaking on the topic of degenerate pressure on the following day and that he was going to strongly criticise Chandrasekhar’s conclusions.  So the speech by Eddington at the RAS came as an unexpected blow to Chandrasekhar.  

As planned, Chandrasekhar presented his work in the meeting of January 11, and the President of the Society asked Eddington to express his views on it.  The views of an established astronomer like Eddington were naturally going to be of great importance.  Chandrasekhar was confident that his conclusions were correct and that experienced astronomers like Eddington would fully support and endorse them.  

But what happened was otherwise.  

In his speech Eddington ridiculed the new results.  He forcefully argued that the hypothesis as well as the conclusions of Chandrasekhar were physically meaningless.  When an established scientist in the field passes such a strong judgement on his work, surely a young scientist must feel very crestfallen and dejected.  

Eddington went on to say that the conclusions drawn by combining quantum theory and relativity were wrong, because such a combination is untenable.  Moreover, he argued that, if the limit on the mass of white dwarfs were correct, what about the stars more massive than the limit?  These stars would keep on contracting and in the end their force of gravitation would grow so strong that it would stop even the light rays!  “I think there should be a law of nature to prevent the star from behaving in this absurd way”, he said.  

When an international authority on relativity like Eddington gave such an opinion, the other scientists present also thought that Chandrasekhar’s work was of dubious validity.  In fact, people like Niels Bohr, Pauli, Rosenfeld etc., who were quantum physicists, knew that Eddington’s reasoning was wrong, but they did not openly support Chandrasekhar.  It may be for two reasons.  First, they did not want to enter into controversy with an established scientist like Eddington, and second: because at that time astronomy was not considered to be a top ranking science, and so other scientists did not take much interest in it.  

It is observed time and again in science that an intrinsically correct theory cannot be suppressed forever by a hostile majority opinion or established leaders in the field.  The evidence does accumulate, sometimes slowly, to support the correct theory.  The theory which was ridiculed on January 11, 1935 earned the Nobel prize after 48 years.  Though late, the father of that theory got justice in the 73^rd year of his life.  

The irony of the debate between Eddington and Chandrasekhar is worth noting, however.  When he criticised the Chandrasekhar limit, Eddington had worried about the fate of more massive stars.  His description of the ever contracting stars, which he considered too ridiculous to be real, in fact applies to black holes.  Today nobody doubts the existence of black holes.  Nature allows things more fantastic than human imagination.  If Eddington had supported Chandrasekhar and worked out the fate of the more massive stars, he would have earned the credit of theoretically predicting black holes!  

The Bending of light

One of the major contributors to the laws of nature was Isaac Newton whose laws of motion and gravitation provided a comprehensive understanding of how things move. Whether it is a football kicked up or a projectile fired or a planet going round the Sun, Newton’s laws provide a quantitative understanding of the events. This understanding was built up by Newton through his theoretical reasoning as well as laboratory experiments and astronomical observations.  Not surprisingly, Newton has been regarded as the father figure in science.

Despite his successes, Newton was self-critical with regard to any new idea.  He would not believe a scientific statement unless and until it was experimentally or observationally verified. When asked about his opinion on why, as implied by his law of gravitation, matter attracts matter, Newton replied “Non fingo hypotheses (I do not make hypotheses).” Indeed, Newton kept a record of unanswered queries of a scientific nature, in the hope that eventually they would be solved.

In his book called Opticks there is one such query. “Do not Bodies act upon Light at a distance, and by their action bend its Rays, and is not this action (caeteris paribus) strongest at the least distance!” If experimental evidence showed that a ray of light changed its path as it passes close to a massive body, the answer to the query would be “yes”.

While  science made progress in the laboratory,  Newton’s query remained largely unanswered.  In the meantime, Albert Einstein proposed the theory of relativity in two major steps. The special theory of relativity proposed in 1905 showed the need for a radical change in the ideas of space time and motion laid down by Newton and Galileo. The details took some time to digest and even today, there are scientists who find some of its conclusions hard to stomach. 

Einstein’s general theory of relativity proposed  in 1915 was even harder to digest. Although its primary motivation was to understand the phenomenon of gravitation, there were many inputs that were counter-intuitive. For example, the geometric rules needed to describe the measurements of space and time are not the familiar ones of Euclid which we learn at school.  For example, Euclid’s  theorem that the three angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees. General relativity on the other hand tells us that the presence of matter and energy alter the above rule—thus making life much more difficult ! 

Newton vs Einstein 

When there are two competing theories in the field, can we think of a test that would decide between the two?  This was the question.  Although Newton had not done so, some of the later mathematicians came up with an answer.  Using Newton’s methods and his conjecture that a light ray consists of particles each traveling with the speed of light, they concluded that light is subject to the law of gravitation.  On that basis they calculated that a light ray from a distant star traveling close to the Sun would be bent from its straight path by a tiny angle.  How tiny? In school geometry we define that a right angle has ninety degrees. Divide a degree into sixty parts to get a tiny angle of “one minute of arc”.  Further divide that minute angle into sixty parts called “seconds of arc”.  The above calculation tells us that the bending angle will be about 0.87 seconds of arc. Could such a small angle be measured? Also, what was Einstein’s answer and how did it compare with Newton’s answer?  These were challenging questions but scientists were confident that with a suitable experiment,  they could be answered. 

The proposed experiment required two measurements of the same star. One when it was close to the solar disc, and the other when the Sun was nowhere near it.  The second measurement was routine—at night time the Sun would not be in the field of view.  But the first measurement was tricky! It required the Sun to be around in the sky; but at the same time, the sky to be dark for the star to be visible.   For this to be possible one needed to make the observation at the time of a total solar eclipse.  When Einstein was putting finishing touches to his theory, he calculated that the bending of light as predicted by his theory was the same as from Newton’s law of gravitation. This conclusion was publicized and a German expedition was planned for the 1914 total solar eclipse. The spot chosen for observation was in Russia, but soon after the observers reached there, war broke out! This was to grow into World War I, in which Germany and Russia were on opposite sides. The Germans who had gone for the eclipse observations were interned as enemy aliens. So no observations could be taken. However, as we shall see later, this apparent setback saved Einstein from an embarrassing situation.  

A total solar eclipse is the outcome of a special alignment of the Moon and the Sun with respect to the observer on the Earth…that is, when the Moon’s disc blocks the Sun completely.  Such an event is rare and transitory and is observable from selected areas on the Earth.  But if observers are located in those areas they can have a dark sky.  The complexity of the experiment thus demanded an expert who appreciated the theory to be tested and was comfortable with all the observational constraints.

Fortunately, such an expert was available when Einstein’s general relativity was being discussed.  Arthur Stanley Eddington, Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge University was one of the few scientists reputed to understand what relativity was about.  He proposed to carry out observations of light bending during the total solar eclipse of 1919, a year after the World War ended.

The proposed experiment had to face numerous difficulties.  It was certainly an exceptional situation that brought scientists together from nations that had been  at war.  During wartime when draft was compulsory, Eddington had pleaded to be excused from it for being a conscientious objector. A legal battle had to be fought to prevent Eddington from being imprisoned.  Pleas from the Astronomer Royal and other important persons eventually succeeded in absolving him from jail! 

Thus, after due thought and consultation and a government grant of 1000 pounds, Eddington organized two teams to do the necessary observations. The eclipse was due on 29 May, 1919 and to reduce the eventuality of bad weather, two observing sites were chosen.   One was on the island of Principe in the Gulf of Guinea and the other at Sobral in Brazil. 

Eddington’s eclipse expedition

Accounts of the historic observation are available in literature and we will summarize a few salient points.  Eddington was the leader of the team and he had elected to observe from the Principe site as it was the more likely site with good weather. On the day of the event, however, the morning had heavy rain. Eddington had given up all hope of observing when the sky miraculously cleared and he was able to get some good observations.  The other team in Sobral headed by Eddington’s colleague Crommelin had good weather but their best telescope turned out to be unusable as it was not set properly at the site. Their standby telescope took some photographs, however, even if not as good as hoped earlier.

As mentioned earlier, the observations during the eclipse had to be supplemented by others taken when there was no sun nearby. Ideally these should have been taken in Principe and Sobral. But very limited facilities in these places meant that there would be considerable delay in the teams reaching back to England. So these observations were carried out in the U.K. after the team’s return. It took some time to complete the data reduction, and the date of announcement of the result (November 6, 1919) was eagerly awaited. Newton’s solution to the bending problem was 0.87 second while Einstein’s prediction after he revised his earlier calculation was 1.74 second: that is twice the Newtonian prediction.   

There was considerable excitement when the Astronomer Royal announced the result to a packed gathering in London, organized by the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. The verdict was in favour of Einstein.  A.N. Whitehead, a distinguished scientist wrote on the occasion: 

…The whole atmosphere of intense interest was exactly that of a Greek drama: we were the chorus commenting on the decree of destiny as disclosed in the development of a supreme incident. There was… in the background the picture of Newton to remind us that the greatest of scientific generalizations was now, after more than two centuries to receive its first modification…   

The news received worldwide publicity and Einstein became world famous. There were several media articles on him.  For example, the couplet on Newton by the poet Alexander Pope:

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night.  God said let Newton be and there was light.

was extended by the following addition:

But not for long! With the Devil howling Ho!  Let Einstein be; restored the status quo.

Later it was recalled that Einstein’s first calculation, which he made while formulating the general theory of relativity, had led him to the same answer as the Newtonian value (0.87 second), had been wrong. Had the 1914 German expedition taken place as it was planned, it would have concluded that Einstein had been wrong.  His correct answer had come later than in 1914.  Having to modify the predicted answer after observation is not impressive and it would have landed him in some embarrassment.     

I did! For example, in Burdwan, where I was visiting the local university, my friend Sriranjan Banerjee was accompanying me to Kolkata. He had reserved seats for us in a First Class compartment on the express train to Howrah. When we reached the railway station, we were informed that the train was due in half an hour. “Not bad!” I thought, but Sriranjan was not very happy. 

He watched the crowd gather on the platform. They did not seem like ‘normal’ railway commuters to Kolkata. At least half were carrying flags. “They look like Football supporters,” I commented. I wish they were,” Replied Sriranjan. But before he could clarify his remark, the train rolled in. 

The train was not only full, it was overflowing. Banerjee held my hand as he worked his way to our reserved accommodation. Being a realist, he realized that finding our seats was not on the cards. “Our best chance is to get into the ladies' compartment,” he added. It was easier to locate… but there were hardly any ladies in it. They were all men. They were polite, though, and suggested our climbing into the upper berth for a seat. I followed Sriranjan as we followed that advice. 

The upper berth is not designed for sitting. We sat in a cramped fashion for the two-hour journey to Howrah. The overcrowded compartment generated heat, so much so that by the time we reached the destination, I was bathed in perspiration. We were to go for a meeting in the science departmental area in the city. But I said: “I cannot think until I have a shower!” Fortunately, Howrah station had retiring rooms where I would find a shower. This was the happy ending to a traumatic journey and my introduction to a morcha. 

Morchas are popular in Bengal, East or West, Banerjee explained. As I was due to visit Bangladesh (former East Bengal) next, I was a bit apprehensive as to what was lying in store for me. I was relieved indeed when I saw my Cambridge friend Jamal Nazarul Islam waiting for me at the Chittagong airport. Like me, Jamal had spent several years in the UK and had now returned home to set up a new institute. He was hosting my visit, sponsored by the International Astronomical Museum. Jamal and his wife Suraiya had been very hospitable to me in Cambridge, and here in their hometown, they had insisted on my staying in their palatial house in Chittagong. 

My stay was indeed enjoyable. On the day before my departure, Jamal and Suraiya invited some friends to a sumptuous dinner party. That evening, we expected to see the cricket World Cup match between India and Bangladesh being broadcast live from the West Indies. The diners, therefore, preferred to stay on after dinner, watching the ODI. I, too, did the same, although I felt that since India had never lost to Bangladesh until then, I may have to face a disappointed local crowd at the end of the match.     

I will not go into details but the bottom line was: India lost!  Even the cheering crowd in Jamal’s house could not believe the outcome…but there it was!  As I went to bed in the early morning hours, I tried to look at the bright side of the result. With the whole nation in cheerful mode, there would be no morchas at least for a day or two. That is what Jamal thought.

That day my flight to Kolkata was scheduled at 5 p.m. with a flying time of 45 minutes. For a domestic flight of a short duration,  the check-in time was one hour. Allowing one hour for driving to the Chittagong Airport, it would have sufficed for us to start at 3 p.m. However, I pointed out that the Chittagong- Kolkata flight was not domestic and would require the three-hour check-in time for an international flight. As such, I proposed starting for the airport at 1 p.m. To this proposal Suraiya’s response was: “Going so early? Are you going to sweep the airport?” After some back and forth we settled for 1.45 p.m. as the starting time.

It was all quiet and peaceful when we started. There was hardly any traffic on the airport road. In the front seat, Jamal was dozing when the car pulled to a stop. “The road is blocked by Police, Sir!” exclaimed the driver. A smartly dressed Police Inspector came over to talk to Jamal. “There is a strong Morcha ahead on this road. Please don’t go this way. They might set your car on fire.” The Inspector advised. We could park the car on a side lane and wait for the Morcha to clear.

“Wait” was sound advice, but for me, time was ticking. As a possible try the Inspector suggested going in a couple of cycle rickshaws because he felt that the Marchers may not attack them. We followed the advice and left the driver in the car and managed to persuade two rickshawallas (rickshaw drivers) to take us further. Jamal and Suraiya got into one, and I mounted the other with my suitcase. However, we got close enough to the centre of the Morcha, and our charioteers refused to go any further.

After some persuasion and extra offers, they took us to the gate of an imposing building with a very large compound. It belonged to the Bangladesh Admiralty. The senior rickshawallah proposed an ingenious plan. If we could enter by the gate facing us we could exit by another gate so situated that we would have bypassed the trouble spot. Good! But not good enough! Because the guard at the gate would not allow it. So Jamal asked him to let him talk to the guard’s superior on their internal phone. 

Things would have worked at that level, but for one tactical mistake on Jamal’s part. He mentioned that I was from India. Bringing foreign nationals to defence-related areas was a sensitive issue and the officer must pass the issue to his boss. This process terminated in the top boss (at the level of admiral) himself came down to escort me from one gate to another. He got into my rickshaw and deposited me just beyond the second gate.

In the meantime the Morcha had shifted more towards the city centre. So we had no difficulty reaching the airport. A curious contraption, which was a cross between a tempo and a minibus, operated between the city centre and the airport and brought us to the airport. As I stepped into the waiting area, I looked at the airport clock. The time was 4:55 p.m. Just made it!  The gates to the airport were about to be closed, and the airline steward said: “Sir, you are one of the few who made it before the Morcha became fierce.”            

Better go early, even if it requires sweeping the floors! 

A chance came when I was in Cambridge, UK, and planning to visit the United States. It was an academic visit to the University of Maryland at College Park. The year was 1967 and the World Fair in Montreal was being hyped as a tourist attraction. So Mangala and I decided to do some clever routing: Fly from London to Montreal on Day 1, Visit the World Fair on Days 2 and 3, then fly to Buffalo for the Niagra Falls, and after two days fly to Washington National. As advised by a friend in Buffalo, we contacted a well-known car rental company that had a booth at the airport. The company made a reservation for a compact car and was assured that an agent would contact me on arrival at the Buffalo Airport.

All this worked out as planned. The car rental agent gave me the key and informed me that the car was parked in the company’s airport car park. As a special courtesy, he accompanied us to the location. As I saw the car parked there, I was shocked. Although listed as a 2-door compact car, it was enormous compared to any car I had driven in England. However, I quickly got used to its size and right hand drive and traffic on the highway on the ‘wrong’ side of the road. Also, being an automatic car, it was a pleasure to drive. There being no traffic congestion, we reached our downtown hotel within half an hour.

In the evening with the car at our disposal, we made a short trip to the Niagara Falls area. There was hardly any crowd at that time of a weekday. A footbridge across the Falls provided an excellent vantage point. At each end, there was a security post:  for, by crossing the bridge one ‘migrated’ from the USA to Canada and vice versa. Two bored-looking ladies reading comics(?) supposedly watched these outposts. As we crossed, they waved. There was no checking of documents. This should have surprised us, but it did not. For our attention was wholly focused on the magnificent scene of falling water. In a peaceful setting, the loud noise of water is exhilarating. This was what we had come to see!

The next morning, after breakfast, we again went to the Falls area, now much more alive than last night. After playing the tourist, we decided to go for a short drive on the Canadian side. Again, as we drove past the security posts we were never stopped for check. So we drove for some twenty miles when we spotted a bridge on the right pointing to the USA. Crossing it, we came across a barrier. A politely worded notice asked those wishing to enter the USA to show their passports. Going past the barrier we came to the immigration office. There was no queue as this was not a popular entry point for the USA.

The officer greeted us and had a short chat about our travel. Then he took a look at my passport first. A puzzled look came on his face as he turned pages back and forth. He said: “Sir, you have a single-entry H-1 visa, and that entry point was used up when you crossed from Canada two days back. So you cannot enter the USA again on this visa.”  He also looked at Mangala’s passport and said: “Madam has a multiple entry visa…but I cannot stamp it because that would show two entries without an exit in between.” 

So it seemed that our trip to the USA was over after this short excursion. The problems loomed before us: What about my 3-month academic visit to Maryland University? More immediately, how can I return a rented car if I cannot get across? How to deal with my hotel room with our luggage there? I outlined these problems to the Immigration Officer and awaited his response. 

He explained that certain laxity was permitted in the Falls area where it was common for people to move between the two countries. The Immigration Office there could have issued a temporary permit for multiple entries if we had approached it. As things stood, he was helpless.

There was silence and suspense as he kept turning the pages of my passport while I also debated whether to contact a friend in the Indian Embassy in Washington DC. But in the end, the officer gave me back our passports and said: “There will be problems for me too whether I stamp your passports or not. So I will assume that I have not seen them. I will press this button to lift the barrier for you to go to the USA. Only don’t get into any trouble. Good luck!

Lucky indeed!    

In 1949, my maternal uncle Vasantmama was visiting us in Banaras. He had just returned from the UK, having acquired a Ph.D. degree in statistics at Cambridge University. When I asked him to describe what ‘statistics’ meant, he was very happy to respond. However, he did not stop there but also went on talking about probability and expected values…and his discourse went above my head. To get him to stop talking, I used diversionary tactics. “Uncle, how about a picnic and car ride?” 

This change in topic arose from the fact that our school holidays for Dashahara and Diwali were soon due and I had been pressing my father for a picnic and car ride. Although he had not denied the request, he had not said “yes” either. To tilt the balance in favour of “yes” I used my trump card: I said that the excursion would be more enjoyable if we arranged it when Vasantmama was around.

Father agreed, and we arranged to have a picnic to Tanda Falls and the temple of Vindhya-Vasini. We asked a reliable taxi driver whose services we had used before. We estimated that the car drive, visits to scenic spots and rest in a local guest house would take around six hours. If we set off at nine in the morning, we should be back in daylight.

The taxi driver had been told to report by eight in the morning, which he did. But he was accompanied by a young man. “This is my nephew Banvari…I find him very useful on a long trip like this. May we take him with us?” asked the driver. Banvari was a typical “U.P. ka Bhaiya”. He addressed the driver as “Chachaji”. As things turned out, taking Banvari with us was a good decision. 

The car Chachaji had brought was a Chevrolet of 1940 vintage. It could seat three adults on each of its two benches. I quickly estimated: The Driver, Banvari and Vasantmama would be on the front bench while Anant and I, together with our parents, would be on the back seat. So, we could all fit in. Soon, we were on the way. My location on the back seat was just behind Vasantmama in the front seat, so I could converse with him while in motion.

My first question to him was: “Will we have a puncture today?”  Vasantmama was as usual careful in his answer. He explained that if the road is macademised or has a good concrete surface, and the car wheels are in good condition, the chance of a puncture would be small. Thereafter, I kept a steady watch on the state of the road. It seemed in good condition…

…But not for long! As we left the university campus where we lived, the road condition worsened. Looking through the rear window all I could see was a thick cloud of dust. And, it was not long before we felt unevenness in motion and the driver pulled up. “Tire puncture, Sir”, he muttered and announced that he and Banvaria would replace the tire with the good spare one. He estimated that it would take only ten minutes and suggested that we could wait on the sidelines.

He was not too far off his estimate and in fifteen minutes we were on our way. But now I had my second question for Vasantmama:  What happens now if we have another puncture?  We have no spare tire to replace the punctured one. Because we already had a puncture, is the chance of having another puncture small?  Before Vasantmama could reply the driver spotted a villager on the road. He asked: Is there someone who will repair our punctured tire? Yes, was the reply; and he assured us that the fellow is half a mile down the road. We did find him and he did the repair job fast. If the roads are bad there will be more punctures and repair jobs will pay! Half an hour later we were on our way with a spare wheel in good condition. “I doubt if we could have got a repair job done so fast in England.” Admitted Vasantmama. 

By now we were feeling hungry and made our way to the so-called guest house. It had barely furnished rooms: the VIP room had electric lights and fans. The housekeeper had been alerted about our visit and had arranged to get the room and attached bathroom cleaned up. He also had an earthenware  ‘surahi’ filled with drinking water.

An excellent picnic was followed by a siesta, and we were prepared for the next item on the program. This was a visit to the Vindhyavasini temple. The temple was on a local summit and attracted good crowds on special occasions. On the day of our visit, there was no special occasion. So we had a relaxed visit and were able to pick up a few mementoes. We were well on our way, however, when I saw the driver slowing down. “Another puncture?” I asked, and the driver nodded. But by now I was no longer upset…I knew the drill. Not being far from the temple, I was sure that a local serviceman would be found and he would do the needful.

This indeed happened, and when we set off on the highway to Banaras, it was just after 4 p.m. Using the data provided by our driver and the milestones, Vasantmama expected that we should be home by 7.30 p.m.; punctures permitting, of course. 

They did not permit it!  We had to stop again for puncture number 4. No one in sight but one small lane branched off to the right…perhaps leading to some village? The driver sent off Banwari in search. He returned in ten minutes accompanied by a middle-aged gentleman who introduced himself as Ramji Pandit. He was a primary school teacher. After hearing our tale of woe, he smiled and had this suggestion. There was a reasonable service location about four miles down the highway. Let the Driver and Banwari follow up on the repair work. By early morning the car should be ready to drive to Banaras. So they would drive the car and reach your house by noon tomorrow. Meanwhile, you and your family wait here for the bus to Banaras which will pass this way in half an hour if it is on time. Usually, it is about 30-40 minutes late. This looked manageable, but he improved on this suggestion. “Rather than wait at this lonely spot for an indefinite period, come with me to my house for a cup of tea and to freshen up. I will post my elder son here to stop the bus and inform us so that you can go on it.”

My father readily agreed to the plan. My mother also found it attractive especially when she learnt that wild animals like wolves and cheetahs start their search for food after sunset. But Vasantmama was not happy. He believed that the nice gentleman was a village version of the highwayman. He retained this view until we boarded the bus for Banaras at around 7 p.m.

So all's well that ends well, I felt. But it had not ended yet!  Our bus arrived at the newly constructed Malaviya Bridge on the Ganges. We had to cross it to reach the Banaras side. But no traffic was permitted on the bridge from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. as some maintenance work had to be carried out. As a concession we could cross the bridge on foot…a walk of about a mile.

After all our adventure this was nothing!   

In a previous article, I described the role of the Royal Institution in science popularization. Towards the end, I referred to the influence of my Ph.D. guide, Fred Hoyle, in getting me interested in that venture. Hoyle had shown how an active scientist can play a vital role in conveying to the general public the importance of science in shaping our society.  His talks on BBC radio in the 1950s on the way the remote world of astronomy can be brought to the public were very popular and were later printed as a book called The Nature of the Universe.  Indeed, during my stay in England, I came across several young scientists who recalled in glowing terms how Fred Hoyle’s BBC lectures had inspired them to take up a career in astronomy.

Several astronomical findings in the early 1960s raised astronomy's subject far beyond the poetic image of “twinkle twinkle little star.” Radio astronomy, inputs from space, the application of advanced computing, esoteric objects like quasars, pulsars and black holes and studies of very distant parts of the universe added to the glamour of astronomy. Technological advances indicated that the universe has a lot of surprises in store for man. Scientific brainstorming was much in demand to appreciate them.

It was against this background that I received an invitation from the Editor of the distinguished science magazine Discovery to write an article surveying these developments. It was a “tall order” for a research student, and I hesitated about taking up the challenge. Fred Hoyle, my research guide and a past master in writing such articles, encouraged me to write, so I came up with an article on Gravitational Collapse. It described how a super-massive star a million times as massive as the Sun would end up having a strong self-gravity that pulls back its own light—in the early 1960s, astronomical evidence for such objects had begun emerging. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the readers’ response. Requests for copy of the article, questions seeking further details, some arguing for alternative ideas, kept coming and Fred was pleased that a student of his was joining his crusade for science popularization.

In the meantime, I was making progress with my research at Cambridge, and landmarks like the Tyson Medal, W.A. Meek Scholarship, Smith’s Prize, and Fellowship at King’s College showed that my work was recognized. Hoyle and I published a number of papers in the prestigious Proceedings of the Royal Society. Thus, we were asked to present our work at a meeting of the Society on June 18, 1964.

Press and the cosmos

I recall that day as being a memorable day in my career. The meeting was well attended by famous scientists like Dirac, Bondi, Salam and others. What I did not expect was the publicity it got from popular press. I have tried to describe our work in a separate article in this series. The papers hailed it as a step forward in understanding the nature of gravitation after the work of Newton and Einstein. Some saw our joint work as international cooperation between Britain and India. But even beyond the popular press, science writers like John Maddox and editors of popular science like New Scientist wrote about it. The following Sunday, Hoyle and I had interviews. While Hoyle was used to publicity, this was a new experience for me.

As publicity snowballed, I received visits from Indian diplomats with proposals to plan a lecture tour of India. It would be a high-profile tour that normally brought distinguished personalities from foreign countries to India. While I felt very happy at the initiative from my own country, I played down the “VIP” nature of the proposed tour. Rather, I asked that preference be given to my lectures at university or college campuses and research-level interactions with interested scientists. Also, to tone down the publicity aspect, I suggested dates for my visit early in the following year in the hope that in the 9-10 month period, the “news value” of my visit would have disappeared. 

Thus, a “Bharat Darshan” tour was arranged for February-March 1965 by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). I do not think a tour like that ever took place again. A few highlights of the tour described here will give some idea.

• The Indian Republic Day (January 26 ) is an occasion for the Government of India to announce public honours (like peerage in the UK). I was pleasantly surprised when the honours list announced on 26 January, 1965 contained my name amongst Padmabhushan awardees. I felt that I was receiving such high honour too soon in my career.

• My tour began in Delhi, where I met Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Education Minister M.C. Chhagla. This despite my request to keep the tour limited to a low-key academic interaction. I was, however, very pleased to receive the appreciation from these VVIPs. It certainly helped me to popularize astronomy in India. Towards the end of my tour, I had the pleasure of meeting the President of India, Dr Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. He had been a good friend of my father ever since his stay in BHU as Vice-Chancellor and had taken a personal interest in my career.

• After Delhi, my tour included stops in Ahmedabad, Bombay, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Madras, Calcutta, Banaras, Agra, and back to Delhi. My lectures attracted tremendous response. At each place, the local organizers had to improvise. I, too, had to improvise the contents and level of my talks. I had planned them for student audiences in the UK–I learned to dilute them considerably. I also appreciated the interest the general public showed in astronomical discoveries.

I could go on and on with my experiences under the Bharat Darshan tour. The media in 1965 were less widespread than they are today. Nevertheless, the publicity given to a scientific event was remarkable. Even more remarkable was the impact it had on all reaches of the society.

I end by quoting one incident which took place when the official Bharat Darshan was just over, and I was visiting my uncle in Pune. The visit was private, but local authorities and media in Pune would not hear of it. Soon, official functions and sight-seeing excursions were arranged. The Municipal Commissioner, the Collector and some local dignitaries accompanied me on a visit to the Fort Simha Garh. As our motorcade passed a village at the foothills, we were stopped by the villagers. The Head of the Village approached us with a request: They had learned that a brilliant scholar (whom he described as modern Jnaneshwar!) would be passing through the village. The village would like to welcome him officially. Could he please be identified? Needless to say, I was deeply touched by this grassroots sentiment.