Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan (born September 16, 1931), also
E.C.G. Sudarshan, is a prominent
Indian American...
physicist, author, and professor at
The University of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a public research university located in Austin, Texas, United States, and is the flagship institution of The University of Texas System. The main campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol...
.
George Sudarshan was born in
PallamPallam , is a small village in the Kottayam district of Kerala state, south India. It is near Kottayam town.-Religion:The village has a mix of Hindu and Christian residents.St. Paul's Orthodox Church, which has a history of over 150 years, St...
,
Kottayam districtKottayam is one of the 14 districts in the state of Kerala, India. The district has its headquarters at Kottayam town, located at 9.36° N and 76.17° E. According to the 1991 census, it is the first district to achieve highest literacy rate in the whole of India. On 27 September 2008, Kottayam...
,
KeralaKerala , is a state located in southwestern India. The state was created in 1956 on linguistc basis, bringing together those places where Malayalam formed the principal language...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. He graduated with honours from the
Madras Christian CollegeThe Madras Christian College in Chennai, South India, is one of the oldest colleges in Asia and was established in 1837. Currently, the college is affiliated to the University of Madras, but functions as an autonomous institution from its campus in Tambaram, Chennai. The college has been rating...
in 1951. He obtained his
master's degreeA master's degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
at the
University of MadrasThe University of Madras is one of the three oldest universities in India . The University of Madras, organized on the model of the University of London, was incorporated on 5 September 1857 by an Act of the Legislative Council of India...
(
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
) in 1952. Then he moved to
Tata Institute of Fundamental ResearchThe Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is a premier institution in India for higher education and research. The main academic disciplines studied at the institute are natural sciences, mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is located at Navy Nagar Colaba, Mumbai...
(TIFR) and worked there for a brief period with Homi Bhabha as well as others.
Ennackal Chandy George Sudarshan (born September 16, 1931), also
E.C.G. Sudarshan, is a prominent
Indian American...
physicist, author, and professor at
The University of Texas at AustinThe University of Texas at Austin is a public research university located in Austin, Texas, United States, and is the flagship institution of The University of Texas System. The main campus is located approximately from the Texas State Capitol...
.
Early life
George Sudarshan was born in
PallamPallam , is a small village in the Kottayam district of Kerala state, south India. It is near Kottayam town.-Religion:The village has a mix of Hindu and Christian residents.St. Paul's Orthodox Church, which has a history of over 150 years, St...
,
Kottayam districtKottayam is one of the 14 districts in the state of Kerala, India. The district has its headquarters at Kottayam town, located at 9.36° N and 76.17° E. According to the 1991 census, it is the first district to achieve highest literacy rate in the whole of India. On 27 September 2008, Kottayam...
,
KeralaKerala , is a state located in southwestern India. The state was created in 1956 on linguistc basis, bringing together those places where Malayalam formed the principal language...
,
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. He graduated with honours from the
Madras Christian CollegeThe Madras Christian College in Chennai, South India, is one of the oldest colleges in Asia and was established in 1837. Currently, the college is affiliated to the University of Madras, but functions as an autonomous institution from its campus in Tambaram, Chennai. The college has been rating...
in 1951. He obtained his
master's degreeA master's degree is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
at the
University of MadrasThe University of Madras is one of the three oldest universities in India . The University of Madras, organized on the model of the University of London, was incorporated on 5 September 1857 by an Act of the Legislative Council of India...
(
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
) in 1952. Then he moved to
Tata Institute of Fundamental ResearchThe Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is a premier institution in India for higher education and research. The main academic disciplines studied at the institute are natural sciences, mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is located at Navy Nagar Colaba, Mumbai...
(TIFR) and worked there for a brief period with Homi Bhabha as well as others. Subsequently he moved to
University of RochesterThe University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university located in Rochester, New York. The University grants undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, and professional degrees through six schools and various interdisciplinary programs...
in
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
with
Robert MarshakRobert Eugene Marshak was an American physicist dedicated to learning, research, and education.Marshak was born in the Bronx, New York City. His parents, Harry Marshak and Rose Marshak, were immigrants to New York from Minsk. He was educated at Columbia University.Marshak received his PhD from...
as a graduate student. In 1958, he received his
Ph.D.Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated PhD , for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", or alternatively, DPhil, for the equivalent , is an advanced academic degree awarded by universities...
degree from the University of Rochester.
Career
Sudarshan has made significant contributions to several areas of physics. He was the originator (with
Robert MarshakRobert Eugene Marshak was an American physicist dedicated to learning, research, and education.Marshak was born in the Bronx, New York City. His parents, Harry Marshak and Rose Marshak, were immigrants to New York from Minsk. He was educated at Columbia University.Marshak received his PhD from...
) of the V-A theory of the weak force (also done later by
Richard FeynmanRichard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics...
and
Murray Gell-MannMurray Gell-Mann is an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles....
), which eventually paved the way for the electroweak theory. Feynman said in 1963 : "
The V-A theory that was discovered by Sudarshan and Marshak, publicized by Feynman and Gell-Mann".
He also developed a
quantumIn physics, a quantum is the minimum unit of any physical entity involved in an interaction. An example of an entity that is quantized is the energy transfer of elementary particles of matter and of photons and other bosons...
representation of coherent light (for which Glauber was awarded the 2005 Nobel).
Sudarshan's most significant work might be his contribution to the field of
quantum opticsQuantum optics is a field of research in physics, dealing with the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light and its interactions with matter.- History of quantum optics :...
. His theorem proves the equivalence of classical wave optics to quantum optics. The theorem makes use of the Sudarshan representation. This representation also predicts optical effects that are purely quantum, and cannot be explained classically.
Sudarshan has made significant contributions to many other fields of physics. He was the first to propose the existence of
tachyonA tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that travels faster than the speed of light...
s, particles that travel faster than light. He developed formalism called dynamical maps that is one of the most fundamental formalism to study the theory of
open quantum systemIn physics, an open quantum system is a quantum system which is found to be in interaction with an external quantum system, the environment. The open quantum system can be viewed as a distinguished part of a larger closed quantum system, the other part being the environment.Open quantum systems are...
. He, in collaboration with Baidyanaith Misra, also proposed the
quantum Zeno effectThe quantum Zeno effect is a name coined by George Sudarshan and Baidyanath Misra of the University of Texas in 1977 in their analysis of the situation in which an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. One can nearly ”freeze” the evolution of the system by measuring it...
.
He has taught at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), University of Rochester,
Syracuse UniversitySyracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, U.S.A.. It was founded as a university in 1870, but its roots can be traced back to a seminary founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832 which eventually became Genesee College...
, and Harvard. From 1969 onwards, he has been a Professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin and a Senior Professor at the
Indian Institute of ScienceThe Indian Institute of Science is a premier research institution of higher learning located in Bengaluru, India. It was established in 1909. According to the journal Current Science, IISc currently ranks first in India in terms of research output and quality of faculty...
. He worked as the Director of the
Institute of Mathematical SciencesThe Institute of Mathematical Sciences is a research centre located at Chennai, India. The institute is also known as Matscience.-History:...
(IMSc), Chennai, India for five years during the 1980s dividing his time between India and USA. During his tenure, he transformed it into a centre of excellence. He also met and held many discussions with philosopher J Krishnamurti.
His areas of interest include elementary particle physics,
quantum opticsQuantum optics is a field of research in physics, dealing with the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light and its interactions with matter.- History of quantum optics :...
,
quantum informationIn quantum mechanics, quantum information is physical information that is held in the "state" of a quantum system. The most popular unit of quantum information is the qubit, a two-level quantum system...
,
quantum field theoryQuantum field theory provides a theoretical framework for constructing quantum mechanical models of systems classically described by fields or of many-body systems. It is widely used in particle physics and condensed matter physics...
, gauge field theories,
classical mechanicsIn the fields of physics, classical mechanics is one of the two major sub-fields of study in the science of mechanics, which is concerned with the set of physical laws governing and mathematically describing the motions of bodies and aggregates of bodies geometrically distributed within a certain...
and foundations of physics. He is also deeply interested in
VedantaVedanta was originally a word used as a synonym for that part of the Veda known also as the Upanishads. The name is a sandhied form of Veda-anta = "Veda-end" = "the appendix to the Vedas"...
, on which he lectures frequently.
Controversy regarding Nobel Prize
ECG Sudarshan has been overlooked for the Physics Nobel Prize on more than one occasion.
There was a controversy involving Sudarshan and the
Nobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Prize in literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
for 2005 too. Several physicists wrote a letter to the Swedish Academy, protesting that Sudarshan should have been awarded a share of the Prize for the Sudarshan diagonal representation (also known as Sudarshan-Glauber representation ) in quantum optics, for which
Roy J. GlauberRoy Jay Glauber is an American theoretical physicist. He is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics at Harvard University and Adjunct Professor of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona...
won his share of the prize. The Nobel Committee has often been criticized for allegedly ignoring scientists who did seminal work on a topic while awarding a prize to other scientists for the same topic.
For the first time, Sudarshan himself has broken his silence over the Nobel controversy. Speaking to the
Hindustan TimesHindustan Times is one of India's leading newspapers, published since 1924 with roots in the independence movement. The name comes from the Persian word 'Hindostān', which amongst Muslims is synonymous for northern and central India...
, he expressed frustration at the way he was ignored for top science honours, saying
"The 2005 Nobel prize for Physics was awarded for my work, but I wasn’t the one to get it. Each one of the discoveries that the Nobel was given for were based on my research.
"... The irony of the situation is that in spite of all these facts being available in print, the diagonal representation instead of being referred to as the Sudarshan representation is dubbed as either the P-Representation (as if Glauber discovered and named it first) or at best as `Glauber-Sudarshan' Representation.
"
About having been denied the Nobel in 1979 as well, Sudarshan said, "Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam built on work I had done as a 26-year-old student. If you give a prize for a building, shouldn’t the fellow who built the first floor be given the prize before those who built the second floor?"
Awards
In 2007, Sudarshan was awarded the
Padma VibhushanThe Padma Vibhushan is India's second highest civilian honour. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It was established on 2 January 1954. It ranks behind the Bharat Ratna and before the Padma Bhushan...
by the Government of India, the second highest civilian award.
- Padma Vibhushan
The Padma Vibhushan is India's second highest civilian honour. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It was established on 2 January 1954. It ranks behind the Bharat Ratna and before the Padma Bhushan...
second highest civilian award from Government of IndiaThe Government of India, also known as the Union Government or the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of a union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
, 2007.
- Majorana Prize, 2006.
- First Prize
A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people to recognise and reward actions or achievements. Official prizes often involve monetary rewards as well as the fame that comes with them...
in PhysicsPhysics is a natural science; it is the study of matter and its motion through spacetime and all that derives from these, such as energy and force...
, Third World Academy of SciencesTWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world -- until 2004 named Third World Academy of Sciences -- is a merit-based science academy uniting more than 800 scientists from some 90 countries. Its principal aim is to promote scientific capacity and excellence for sustainable development in...
, 1985.
- Padma Bhushan
The Padma Bhushan award is an Indian civilian decoration established 2 January 1954 by the President of India. It stands third in the hierarchy of civilian awards, after the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan, but comes before the Padma Shri...
decoration by President of IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
, 1976.
- Bose Medal, 1977
- CV Raman Award, 1970
See also
- Quantum open system
- Quantum optics
Quantum optics is a field of research in physics, dealing with the application of quantum mechanics to phenomena involving light and its interactions with matter.- History of quantum optics :...
- Quantum Zeno effect
The quantum Zeno effect is a name coined by George Sudarshan and Baidyanath Misra of the University of Texas in 1977 in their analysis of the situation in which an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. One can nearly ”freeze” the evolution of the system by measuring it...
- Tachyon
A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that travels faster than the speed of light...
- Weak interaction
The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental interactions of nature. In the Standard Model of particle physics, it is due to the exchange of the heavy W and Z bosons...
External links