'Physics research is dead in India' is a common belief shared by most Indians who are not in academia. So here's a thread to give you a small glimpse of physics research in India👇
'Physics research is dead in India' is a common belief shared by most Indians who are not in academia. So here's a thread to give you a small glimpse of physics research in India👇
One of the world's leading research institutions in theoretical physics, ICTS(International Center for Throretical Science) , which is at par with the likes of ICTP and IAS Princeton, is in Bangalore, India.
ICTS is well known for having hosted the likes of Juan Maldacena and David Tong to name a few.
You may think that's it, but truth is, we have several other research institutions that are producing world class papers in theoretical as well as experimental physics. HRI Allahabad, IACS Kolkata, TIFR Mumbai, IISc, IISERs, IITs, NISER, CEBS and some of them.
Not to forget some private institutions like Ashoka Univetsity, Ahmedabad University and Shiv Nadar University are also home to some of the world's leading research groups in both theory and experiment.
Indian institutions have been home to once in a generation physicists like Ashoke Sen, whose work was pivotal in the realisation that all string theories are different limits of the same underlying theory.
Sen, who is currently working at ICTS, was awarded the 2012 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which is considered by most as the highest honour in theoretical physics.
Another big name was Amal Raychaudhary (1923 - 2005). Raychaudhary was a professor at IACS and is well known for the Raychaudhary equation, a work that directly lead to the nobel winning paper of Roger Penrose.
These are just the popular names. Truth is, there are countless professors at hundreds of small, unknown colleges in India, who are working on highly advanced topics in theoretical physics without getting proper funds.
Though it's not uncommon for institutes in India to struggle from lack of resources, statements like 'physics research is dead in India' are a severe disrespect to the work of countless professors in this country.
@RoyParmest Just one question - how many nobel prizes have these institutes won for physics? If they were doing groundbreaking research and good at it, they would have won atleast 1 nobel prize for physics.
@RoyParmest The fact that your examples of "physics research is thriving in India" are heavily biased in favor of string theory shows that the health of physics research in India isn't as good as you make it out to be.
@RoyParmest Pretty sure Pakistani unis are better with half the resources. Even in engineering the robots they design are much better
@RoyParmest Why cry here, blame a religion, nation or anything. Sabine Hosenfelder wrote a book "Lost in Math" and expressed her grief that there has not been a single discovery or breakthrough in physics since the last 50 years.
@RoyParmest But what is the work, please cite those as well, you have mentioned only about one award won in 2012 , been 12 years since then
@RoyParmest Most of the people making such comments never studied physics beyond class 12.