An Indian-origin professor in the United States will be conferred the prestigious Einstein Prize for his contribution to gravitational science.
The American Physical Society (APS) will confer it’s prestigious Einstein Prize to Indian-origin Professor Abhay Ashtekar who started his engagement with gravitational science more than 40 years ago.
The prize will be conferred "for numerous and seminal contributions to general relativity, including the theory of black holes, canonical quantum gravity, and quantum cosmology,” the citation of the prize reads.
The prize carries an award of $10,000.
Dr Ashtekar is known for his Quantum loop gravity and is the Eberly Professor of physics, and director of the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos at the Pennsylvania State University.
Prof. Ashtekar, who hails from Kolhapur in Maharashtra, told IANS he always was passionate about Physical sciences.
“At first I knew only Marathi literature –that is my mother tongue and was the medium of instruction until I was 11. Then was exposed to Hindi and English literature and realised how deeply literature is tied to specific cultures. What is considered great in one language or context could well be mediocre in another.
"At the same time, I learned Newton’s laws and universality of gravity — what makes the apple fall on earth also makes the planets go around the sun. This was stunning by itself,” he said.
He found it most remarkable that Newton’s Law was taught across the world. In college, Ashtekar pursued fundamental physics to understand the external world and in graduate school, he worked in general relativity, cosmology and quantum physics.
Source: Twitter/@FrancesVidotto
Dr Abhay Ashtekar is an atheist, but enjoys reading Asian and Indian philosophy and has been greatly inspired by the Bhagwat Gita in relation to his attitude towards work.
