Infosys-ICTS Chandrasekhar Lectures
The renowned astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar worked on a variety of pathbreaking problems in his lifetime. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983 for formulating theories for the creation of the ‘white dwarf’ as the hydrogen fuel of stars of a certain size runs out. The Infosys-ICTS Chandrasekhar Lecture Series are delivered by eminent physicists. The first lecture in any series is aimed at a general audience, while the remaining are targeted at specialists.
Past Lectures
Entropy production and phoretic transport
Daan Frenkel (University of Cambridge, UK)
30 August 2018, 16:00 to 17:00
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : Tuesday 28 August, 16:00 to 17:00 Title : Order, disorder and entropy Abstract : Since the middle of the twentieth century, the traditional picture of entropy as a measure of disorder has shifted. However, this development is not well known outside the Statistical Mechanics community...more
Nature’s optics and our understanding of light
Michael Berry (Melville Wills Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at the University of Bristol, UK)
11 June 2018, 16:00 to 17:00
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : Monday 11 June, 16:00 to 17:00 Title : Nature’s optics and our understanding of light Abstract : Optical phenomena visible to everyone abundantly illustrate important ideas in science and mathematics. The phenomena considered include rainbows, sparkling reflections on water, green...more
Making Traversible wormholes Understanding global AdS2
Juan Maldacena (Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ)
24 May 2018, 09:30
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : May 22, 2018 Tuesday (4pm) Title : Quantum mechanics and the geometry of spacetime. Abstract: Black holes are fascinating objects which pose interesting puzzles for quantum physics. Studying these puzzles we are led to quantum mechanical models that describe special black holes as seen...more
Sign problems and quantum computers
David B. Kaplan (University of Washington, USA)
03 February 2018, 09:30 to 10:30
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : 31 January 2018, 16:00 to 17:00 Title : Computing Reality. Abstract : Physicists have beautiful theories for the microphysical interactions between particles, but face a number of problems when trying to compute predictions for the properties of matter. Many of these obstacles cannot be...more
S. Chandrasekhar's fluid dynamics
Katepalli Raju Sreenivasan (Dean of NYU Tandon School of Engineering; The Eugene Kleiner Professor for Innovation in Mechanical Engineering; Professor of Physics (Faculty of Arts and Science); Mathematics (Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences))
24 January 2018, 16:00 to 17:00
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : 22 January 2018, 16:00 to 17:00 Title : Chandra's fluid dynamics Abstract : This talk will describe and assess S. Chandrasekhar's work in fluid dynamics from about 1948 to 1960 and include remarks on his interactions during these years with leaders in the field. A brief remark on...more
Dynamics of 2+1-dimensional Quantum Field Theory
Nathan Seiberg (Institute for Advanced Study, School of Natural Sciences, Princeton, New Jersey, USA)
12 January 2018, 11:00 to 12:30
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : 8 January 2018, 16:00 to 17:30 Title : Symmetries, Duality, and the Unity of Physics Abstract : Global symmetries and gauge symmetries have played a crucial role in physics. The idea of duality demonstrates that gauge symmetries can be emergent and might not be fundamental. During the...more
Fluctuations and large deviations in nonequilibrium systems
Bernard Derrida (Laboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, France)
24 August 2017, 16:00 to 17:00
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : August 22, Tuesday, 4:00 PM Title : The importance of large deviations in non equilibrium systems Large deviations functions appear almost everywhere in Statistical Physics, in particular when one tries to quantify the frequency of rare events. Already the notion of free energy can be...more
Microscopic Stochastic Heat Engines Using Nonequilibrium Bacterial Reservoirs
Ajay Sood (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore)
09 August 2017, 16:00 to 17:00
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : 7 August 2017, 16:00 to 17:00 Title : Microscopic Stochastic Heat Engines Using Nonequilibrium Bacterial Reservoirs. Abstract : The conventional macroscopic heat engine, a device to convert thermal energy to mechanical energy, is a triumph of the understanding of classical...more
Models of Cosmological Inflation
John Ellis ( King's College, London, UK)
07 June 2017, 09:15 to 10:30
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS Bangalore
Lecture 1 : June 5, Monday, 17:00 - 18:15 pm Title : The Dark Side of the Universe Astrophysicists and cosmologists tell us that most of the Universe is invisible - the stars in galaxies are held together by dark matter and dark energy spread throughout space is accelerating the expansion of the...more
Random Matrix Theory and the dynamics of nonequilibrium interfaces
Herbert Spohn (Technical University, Munich)
27 October 2015, 16:00 to 17:00
Ramanujan Lecture Hall, ICTS campus
In a very influential work, Kardar, Parisi, and Zhang studied the dynamics of growing interfaces, in particular their self-similar structure. For two- dimensional bulk, one-dimensional interface, there is a surprising link to Random Matrix Theory. With this insight, beyond exponents, scaling...more

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