ICTS

In this issue, Shadab Alam writes about the exciting new data on the nature of dark energy from the DESI experiment. Abhay Deshpande and Raju Venugopalan tell us about the planned Electron Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and what it will reveal about the nature of the Universe. Read about the new series approximation to the enigmatic number pi from Aninda Sinha.

With the launch of Astrosat in 2015, India joined a select group of nations with astronomical observatories in outer space. In this issue, we learn about a very successful eight years of Astrosat from Kulinder Pal Singh. Parameswaran Ajith writes about the exciting prospect of gravitational lensing of gravitational waves. In mathematics, Anirban Basak writes about non-normal matrices.

In this issue, read about the new insights on extremal black holes from Joaquin Turiaci. In a conversation with Michael Jordan, we dive deep into machine learning and artificial intelligence. Also, Joe Silk talks about the exciting problems in the world of astrophysics.

Can living fluids be turbulent? Find out the answer through the world of statistical physics in our latest issue. We take a journey through history to learn about the emergence of western science in India. During GN Ramachandran centenary year we remember his work and life with two tributes.

In our first issue of the year, we learn about statistical mechanics of strange metals and black holes from Subir Sachdev. Partha P. Majumdar writes about genes as a guide to human history and culture and Smarajit Karmakar celebrates the life and works of 2021 Physics Nobel Prize winner Giorgio Parisi. 

Prof. M.S. Narasimhan, one of India’s most eminent mathematicians, passed away on 15 May 2021. Prof. Narasimhan had a close association with ICTS since its inception. He was a member of the International Advisory Board till March 2013. ICTS is grateful for his constant support and advice. In this issue, we remember Prof. Narasimhan with tributes from his friends, colleagues and family. We also present Prof. P.P. Divakaran’s detailed account of how a Pan-Indian cultural identity was created.

Over the last couple of years there has been striking progress towards understanding the so-called `Black Hole Information Paradox’, the apparent violation of the rules of quantum mechanics in black hole backgrounds that Hawking first drew attention to 45 years ago. The new work on this long standing puzzle is reviewed in this issue from the perspective of theoretical physicists, Ahmed Almheiri from IAS Princeton and Douglas Stanford from Stanford University.
Also in this issue, senior astrophysicist Mayank Vahia writes about the ancient world and ancient astronomy. MB Rajani gives us an interesting geospatial analysis to study and preserve cultural heritage landscapes.

Roddam Narasimha, the world renowned fluid dynamist and atmospheric scientist, passed away on 14 December 2020. We dedicate this special issue to his memory. His daughter, students, friends and colleagues remember Narasimha for his path-breaking research, mentorship, friendship and immense contribution to science building in India as well as his constant guidance to and deep involvement with ICTS-TIFR.  

C.S. Seshadri, one of India's most eminent mathematicians, passed away on July 17, 2020. In our 11th issue, we remember Prof. Seshadri through the words of his friends and colleagues. We learn about the early days of the School of Mathematics at TIFR and its culture of excellence from the main pillars of the famed school. We also learn about the recent developments at the ALICE detector at CERN from one of India's top experimental physicists.

For our tenth issue, we had originally planned to focus on the humanities. However, as this issue goes online, India and the world are engulfed by a one-in-a-century global pandemic. As science will play the key role in humanity’s response to this crisis, it was impossible to exclude COVID-19 from this issue. So we included a speech given by K. VijayRaghavan, who is the principal scientific adviser to the Government of India, professor emeritus and the former director of the National Centre of Biological Sciences, Bangalore. We also have answers from Gautam Menon to a series of questions our readers might have about the pandemic, especially in the Indian context. Menon is a professor of physics and computational biology at Ashoka University and Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai.

Apart from this, we have articles on Emperor Ashoka by Nayanjot Lahiri, about the environment and urban water by Sharachchandra Lele and analytical methods to understanding history by Tarun Khanna.