ECG Sudarshan: The Vedantin Physicist - Informatics Studies

7Informatics Studies 5(3), July – September, 2018

E.C.G. Sudarshan: The Vedantin Physicist

Dinithi Garusinghe

Abstract

ECG Sudarshan passed away on Monday, May 16, 2018 at the age of 86 in Texas, USA. He wasthe most brilliant theoretical physicist of Indian origin of the century. His research spanned awide range of topics like Particle Physics, Quantum Optics, Quantum Field Theory, QuantumInformation Theory, Gauge Theories and Classical Mechanics and in each of them he could makeunique contributions. He has been credited with numerous important inventions in the field ofTheoretical Physics including Optical Coherence, Sudarshan-Glauber Representation, V-A Theory,Tachyons, Quantum Zeno Effect, Open Quantum System, Spin-statistics Theorem, Non-invarianceGroups, Positive Maps of Density Matrices, Quantum Computation etc. His contributionsinclude also on subjects like Orientalia, cultural studies, philosophy and religion. This is a briefaccount of his life and works in remembrance.

Keywords: Theoretical Physics, Quantum Optics, Quantum Computation, Quantum InformationTheory, Open Quantum System, Sudarshan-Glauber Representation, V-A Theory, Tachyons, Spin-Statistics Theorem, etc

ECG Sudarshan, was the most brillianttheoretical physicist of Indian origin of thecentury. He was officially nominated forNobel Prize several times but missed thecoveted honor every time. Great scientistsof our time; Nobel winners in physics likeRichard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann,Steven Weinberg, Sheldon Glashow andAbdus Salam prolifically used and citedSudarshan's work with great respect andadmiration. Legendary figures like StephenHawking, Roger Penrose and Peter Higgshave mentioned his crucial role infundamental physics on numerousoccasions. Such was the academic standingand reputation of this Indian scientist inthe heavily competitive world of Americanand European physics.

Early Life

ECG Sudarshan was born in a Christian

family of Pallam, in Kerala, India in 1931.Despite being raised in a Syrian Christianfamily. Finding parallels between Hinduknowledge tradition and modern science,Sudarshan left Christianity and embraced theHindu way of life. But he has nodisagreements with the Christianity..

He studied at CMS College Kottayam. Thenfor his B.Sc. (Hon's.) he studied at MadrasChristian College, India. In 1952 he receivedhis master's degree in science from MadrasUniversity.

He met and impressed Homi J Bhabha.Homi Bhabha could not tolerate physicistsstudying quantum field theory anywhere inIndia outside of the Tata Institute ofFundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai.Understanding Sudarshan's interest in thesubject and, more importantly, his promisingmastery of it, Bhabha invited him to join

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Sudrashan was a Fellow of the AmericanPhysical Society, Indian Academy of Sciences,Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Kiev; IndianNational Science Academy; Third WorldAcademy of Sciences; Calcutta MathematicalSociety; L'Académie Internationale dePhilosophie des Sciences; Central Institutefor English and Other Foreign Languages,Hyderabad; European Academy for Arts,Science and Literature and Indian Institutefor Advanced Study, Shimla, India. He wasalso in the Editorial Boards of Journal ofMathematical Physics, Reports onMathematical Physics, Journal of Social andBiological Structures, Letters in MathematicalPhysics, etc.

Way of Writing and Teaching

Sudarsan was not happy about the stateeducation and research in many countriesincluding India. To a question Narayan askedin 2013 ' How do you rate the presentstandards of scientific research in India?' hestated "At the risk of generalising, let me saythat with all the hype that some of theseinstitutes carry, I hardly see any big ideascoming out of them. Most scientists arelocked up in their comfort zones, happypursuing run-of-the-mill problems. Thereis no desire to excel. One should, at leastoccasionally, show the courage to take up bigquestions and explore intriguing newpossibilities. Such attempts are hardly seen.Progress is not made by repeating what hasalready been done (Narayan, 2013).

Mark Byrd one of his students who ispresently Professor of Physics at SouthernIllinois University at Carbondale states (Byrd,2018): 'he was able to understand a great dealabout a subject by looking carefully at onefairly simple example. This is not somethingmany of us can do, but his ability to generalizefrom one example or simple equation wasastounding. In addition, he was often ableto boil down a complex problem into asimple set of principles or concepts. MarkByrd has recorded one of the instances heexperinced which can reveal Sudarsan's

TIFR and he accepted worked directly underthe guidance of Homi Bhabha on CosmicRays .

He married Bhamathi, a fellow student in1954. They have three children.

During his work at TIFR he got a chance tomeet the American physicist, Robert EugeneMarshak. He was also impressed bySudarshan devotion and love for the subject.This led Sudarshan and his young wife tomove to US and take up studies for his PhDat the University of Rochester, New York. Itwas while working for his PhD dissertationunder Marshak that Sudarshan producedthe first of his many importantcontributions to physics.

Career

Sudarshan received his PhD on Theory ofRadio Activity from Rochester in 1958.Sudarshan had his academic career mostly inthe US. After his PhD he moved to HarvardUniversity to join Julian Schwinger as apostdoctoral fellow where he worked from1959-1961. For a brief period 1961-1963 heworked as Associate Professor at Universityof Rochester. Then he changed to Instituteof Exact Sciences, University of Berne (1963- 1964). From 1965 - 1969 he served asProfessor of Physics at Syracuse University,Syracuse. In 1969 settled down permanentlyat Austin, Texas and accepted the post ofProfessor of Physics at University of Texas.While so he also acted as Senior Professor,Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore from1973 - 1984 and Director, Institute ofMathematical Sciences (IMS), Chennai, Indiafrom 1984 to 1990. During the 1980sdividing his time between India and USAhe transformed IMS into a centre ofexcellence. He was a Professor at Universityof Texas for more than 40 years. In 1980s,he worked as Director of Institute ofMathematical Sciences at Chennai for fiveyears. During his involvement in researchorganizations in India he tried his bestensure quality of work conducted there.



analogies, insight, and wisdom. 'Once I wastrying to understand a paper I was readingand he walked by my office. I decided to askhim if he understood what the paper wasabout. He took the paper from me and wentto his office. After about 2 minutes, he cameout and said, “this is just about the invarianceof spin through 4 pi rotations.” It wasmasked in a great deal of notation, however.So I asked, “Well, why didn’t they just saythat?” He said, “Well it is very much like thecranes.” And he walked back into his office.Many of his students would have left thatalone and just understood that this wasSudarshan. However, I was an annoyingstudent who often asked the questions thatothers did not. Completely dumbfounded,I got up and followed him into his officeand asked (in a way that showed I was clearlydumbfounded), “Cranes!? Whatcranes?!?!?!” He smiled a bit and told methis story. In a particular part of India, thecranes stand in the farmers’ fields. They comein the evening and sleep in the fields. In themorning, when the sun comes up, they goaround and eat the seeds that the farmershad planted in the field the day before. Sothe farmers would sneak out at night andput a little pat of butter on their heads while

they slept so that when the sun came up inthe morning, the butter would melt, runinto the cranes eyes so they could not see,and the farmers could catch them and killthem. I said, “OK, … but they are standingright there with the cranes sleeping. Whydon’t they just kill them while they sleep?”He said, “Ahh, but that would be too easy.”So I understood that the paper saidsomething easy, but made it difficult tounderstand so that it would sound moreimpressive. I think we all know that thishappens more often than we would like inscience. However, it was not Surdarshan’sway to state something in that way. I, forone, very much appreciated that, particularlysince what he did was stretch my imaginationwith a clever analogy that I will never forget'.

Sudarshan was severely diabetic; this oftenmeant that students had to give himcompany when his wife was away in India.He passed away on Monday, May 16, 2018 atthe age of 86 in Texas, USA Aswin Sekhar astudent who used to be with him states that'The single most important thing I learntfrom Prof. Sudarshan was the sheer joy offiguring something out. Prizes may comeand go, Nobel or not, and recognitions

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would follow whether welcome or not. Noone could take away from him the joy ofwrapping up a calculation and findingsomething new'.

Major Contributions to Science

In 2013 When Anand Neelakantan askedSudarsan in an interview "It has been anincredible half a century of physics for you...,what does physics mean to you? He answered' Everything. I mean, I don't know anythingelse. All I know is how to do physics. I amgood at it. I took to physics like a ducklingto water. I don't even think of what I do asresearch or work anymore. I like theexcitement of looking at the world throughthe prism of science. That's all there is to itand I know that I can continue doing itforever' (Narayan, 2013).

The group named 'The Friends of GeorgeSudarshan' and The University of Texas atAustin, in 2006 conducted an Internationalsymposium named 'Sudarshan: SevenScience Quests Symposium' to discuss thecontributions of Prof. ECG Sudarshan(University of Texas, 2006). It categorizedSdarshans' work into seven major areas; V-A: Universal Theory of Weak Interaction,Symmetry, Spin Statistics, Quantum OpticalCoherence: Sudarshan Representation,Quantum Zeno Effect' Theory of Tachyonsand Quantum Mechanics of Open Systems.

Sudarshan's major contributions totheoretical physics might be his contributionto the field of quantum optics. Sudarshanand his collaborators initiated the 'Quantumtheory of charged-particle beam optics', byworking out the focusing action of amagnetic quadruple using the Dirac equation.His theorem proves the equivalence ofclassical wave optics to quantum optics. Thetheorem makes use of the Sudarshanrepresentation. This representation alsopredicts optical effects that are purelyquantum, and cannot be explained classically.His universal theory of weak interactions andquantum description of optics, are

extraordinary works and unfortunately hemissed the Nobel prize. His othercontributions, namely Tachyons, symmetriesand quantum theories, spin and statistics,quantum Zeno effect, and evolution ofgeneral quantum states, are all outstanding.(Govindarajan 2017)

V-A Theory of the Weak Force

In the 1950s and 1960s, the cutting edge ofphysics was to be found in the study offundamental particles. Cloud and bubblechambers around the world were churningout reams of data. Faint particle tracksembedded in photographic plates containedthe secrets of the way the universe was built.(Shaji, 2018)

It had been shown a couple of years earlierto Sudarshan starting his research that theweak nuclear force, the one that is experiencedby sub-atomic particles at tiny sub-atomicdistances and is responsible for theradioactive decay of certain material, violatedwhat is called parity symmetry, which theother three fundamental forces of nature -strong nuclear force, electromagnetic force,and gravitation - follow.

'Suppose, a physical event is seen to occur innature. It was believed that the mirror imageof the event was also a possible event. But itwas shown that under the influence of weakforce, this is not so.

Poring over such information, Sudarshanalong with American physicist, RobertEugene Marshak was able to formulate in1957 the V-A theory of electro weakinteractions, which describes a set ofinteractions among particles that are affectedby the electromagnetic and weak nuclearforces of nature.

It was a great achievement. It came when hewas still a PhD student and it had beenmissed even by stalwarts like Nobel laureateand celebrated physicist Richard Feynman.Marshak was justifiably wary of publishinga theory with such remarkable consequences,



so it was subsequently publicised via theproceedings of a conference in Italy (Shaji,2018). He also facilitated a discussion withRichard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann,who subsequently published a paper on thetopic. Feynman, developed the theoryfurther, and acknowledged that it hadoriginated in Sudarshan's work (Mehra,1994).

In 1956, Chien-Shiung Wu's experimentshowed that a hypothetical law of naturethat physicists had long thought to be truedoesn't always hold, that sometimes somenatural processes break the law; the V-Atheory proved to be instrumental inunderstanding this violation. Subsequently,V-A theory would be a key component ofthe overarching theory of weak interactionsflushed out by Sheldon Glashow, AbdusSalam and Steven Weinberg, for which theywould receive the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics.Sudarshan and Marshak got left behind. Buthe got his PhD for the work.

Sudarshan-Glauber Representation

Sudarshan began working on quantumoptics at the University of Rochester in 1960.The work, which went on to win the NobelPrize in 2005, was done in 1962 in the fieldof quantum optics. "It is well known thatlight has quantum nature. But in manysituations when light interacts with matter,for example, when an ordinary bulb lightsup a room, light particles, or photons, canbe treated in the classical manner. Its quantumeffects can be ignored. Sudarshan producedkey mathematical and physical results todistinguish between situations in which thequantum nature of light becomes importantand situations in which it can be ignored.

'In 1962 Glauber criticized the use of classicalelectromagnetic theory in explaining opticalfields, which surprised Sudarshan becausehe believed the theory provided accurateexplanations. Sudarshan subsequently wrotea paper expressing his ideas and sent apreprint to Glauber. Glauber informedSudarshan of similar results and asked to be

acknowledged in the latter's paper, whilecriticizing Sudarshan in his own paper.Glauber criticized Sudarshan's representation,but his own was unable to generate any ofthe typical quantum optics phenomena,hence he introduced what he calls a P-representation, which was Sudarshan'srepresentation by another name, wrote aphysicist. This representation, which had atfirst been scorned by Glauber, later becomesknown as the Sudarshan-Glauberrepresentation' (Wikipedia, 2018).

In 2005, the Nobel Prize was given to RoyGlauber for these very contributions.Sudarshan, who had come up with thefindings first, was ignored, 'for reasons whichcould only be non-academic'(Padmanabhan). The choice was criticised bymany scientists.

Quantum theory for Tachyons

Sudarshan achieved another breakthroughalso in 1960s, when he propounded thetheory of Tachyons. According to the theory,which challenged Einstein's assertion thatnothing with mass can travel faster than thespeed of light 'there should be particles calledTachyons, which had speeds larger than thatof light. So far, the particles have not beenfound experimentally. But he showed thattheoretically the existence of such particleswas not inconsistent with physical laws. Thephysicists are hopeful. When they arediscovered, it will be a historical moment asit would markedly change the conception andunderstanding of the universe (Narayanan,2013). Tachycon is considered as arevolutionary idea within the framework ofthe Special Theory of Relativity.

Some scientists in the world jovially remarkthat if Sudarshan had patented the word'Tachyon' which has now gained cult statusin science fiction books and Hollywood sci-fi movies, he could have retired a millionaire!Tachyon is a particle, which can travel fasterthan light and hence would travel reverse intime, as hypothesised by George Sudarshan.

Dinithi Garusinghe


This concept gained international name andfame instantly for its bewildering name andoriginality. (Prof Gautam Menon)

The formalism called dynamical maps hedeveloped is one of the most fundamentalformalism to study the theory of openquantum system. He, in collaboration withBaidyanath Misra, also proposed thequantum Zeno effect. The strong impressionSudarshan has left in multiple areas ofphysics will remain immortal.

Integrating Physics With Vedanta

About his religious beliefs Sudarsan hadstated once that 'I was born in an OrthodoxChristian family. I was very deeply immersedin it, and so by the age of seven I had readthe entire Bible from Genesis to Revelationtwo or three times. I was not quite satisfiedwith Christianity, and gradually I got moreand more involved with traditional Indianideas'. 'I would now say I am a Vedantin,with these two religious and cultural streamsmixed together' (Richardson, 2002)

To a question "Did your training as a scientistcontribute at all to your growingdissatisfaction with the church?" Sudarsananswered: "No. It was simply that I foundthat the people who professed to practicewere really not practicing. In other words,there was a great deal of show and not thatmuch genuine spiritual experience. Further,a God "out there" did not fully satisfy me.'God is not an isolated event, somethingseparate from the universe. God is theuniverse. (Richardson, 2002)"

Sudarshan had long discussion with Sri.Krishanamoorthy but his views differed.There are numerous lectures, discussion andpapers of Sudarshan on relation of Vedantaand science. Answering to a question. 'Inyour writings and talks you often allude tothe parallels between Vedanta and modernscience. Can you explain this a bit? in aninterview published in The Hindu onJanuary 24, 2013 Sudarshan explained: Thereare certain fundamental questions in physics

for which there are no clear-cut answers. Forexample, what is time? I breathe. I can countthe number of times I do that. Can we callthose intervals as time? Suppose I stopbreathing, does time seize to exist? Einstein'sspecial theory of relativity interprets time asa subjective experience. The notion of timecould be different for different people. Onceyou bring subjective experience into thepicture, science finds close parallels withIndian philosophy. The Upanishads go togreat depths on topics of space, time thenature of causality and such. Unlike science,the analysis found in the Upanishads isentirely from an inside point of view. I findthat approach reasonable and a lot refreshing.'(Narayan, 2013)

Sudarshan's physics was organicallyintegrated with his Vedanta. According toQuantum Zeno Effect (QZE); which heformulated along with B Misra in 1977 anobserved quantum system changes at a rateslower than an unobserved quantum system(Sudarshan and Misra, 1977). In 2001,physicist Mark Raizen observed QZE inactual quantum systems. Today, theemerging field, which examines the role ofquantum processes in biological phenomena,looks at some important biological mysterieslike bird navigation. In fact, Neill Lambertand his co-workers use the QZE in 'theradical ion pair mechanism' in avianmagnetoreception to explain the mystery ofbird navigation (Neelakantan, 2018).

Another interesting contribution ofSudarshan is the proposal of Tachyons,(which he proposed along with O M PBilaniuk and V K Deshpande) in 1962.These are theoretical faster-than-lightparticles.

In 1999, he co-authored 'Doubt AndCertainty: The Celebrated Academy DebatesOn Science, Mysticism Reality' with TonyRothman. They point out how the Easternmysticism does have important insights tooffer to humanity with the worldview thatis being unveiled by quantum mechanics.



In an interview when asked 'Why does onepursue science? the physicist answered byquoting Vishnu Sahasra Nama (Neelakantan,2018): - 'A Brahmin pursues it for Vedanticknowledge; Kshatriya pursues it for victory;Vaishya pursues it for wealth and Shudrapursues it for comfort.' Then he pointedout that none of such motivations are inthemselves inferior or superior to them. Oneof the important insights of Sudarshan washis observation that the psychology ofdiscovery has a spiritual dimension to it.After pointing out that the very first namein Vishnu Sahasra Nama is Viswam - theuniverse, he explained:

The openness of scientists in the momentof discovery is one of impersonal knowledgemanifesting itself within, rather than oneof discovering something outside oneself.This particular point deserves emphasisbecause many scientists are very careful toavoid any talk about the role of their personalexperience in their discoveries. ... In theHindu tradition, however, personalexperience is the ultimate authority withregard to all things. ... Within my tradition,much emphasis is placed on the momentof discovery. Such insights need not be earthshaking. They could be something quitetrivial or small, but nonetheless they involvediscovery (Sudarshan, 2002).

Neelakandan a popular science writer fromIndia wrote (2004) to Sudarshan asking 'ifhe could enlighten the writer on the parallelbetween the differences in Sankya-Buddhistphilosophies and a debate betweenSchrodinger and Heisenberg. Sudarsanreplied explaining patiently on Feynman'sapproach to the world of subatomic particles:

'Feynman looked on a positron as a negative-energy electron propagating 'backwards intime'. If a positron went from A at time t1to B at time t2, A would lose energy and Bwould gain energy, and t2 is later than t1.But the same result is there if a negative-energy electron went from B at time t2 to Aat time t1. This is 'backwards' in time. The

great merit of Feyman's way of looking atthings is that calculations involving electrons,positrons and photons are considerablysimplified. It is this ease in computation thatmade Feynman's way of looking at thingsvery popular. Otherwise it is not a newtheory. (Sudarsan, 2004)

Sudarsan touched on the problem ofTachyons too. As he pointed out the inherentparadoxes that emerge from the approaches,he eloquently and effortlessly showed aVedantic flash too (Neelakantan, 2018):

'In the theory of Tachyons such areinterpretation is necessary to make senseof observations on Tachyons. But whateverinterpretation you use, any classical pictureof a quantum system leads to paradoxes andintensities. For example, Feynman's picturewould say electrons with momentum p goesfrom A to B. But if you know the energyand momentum precisely, you cannotdetermine the space-time locations. So alsothe photon; for visible light it is about 4000Å but the size of the atom is only about 1Å. How can a photon originate from theatom? This is Maya, the deliberatespontaneous misuse of models (Sudarsan,2004).

Sudarshan ended the long reply to AravindanNeelakanta with these unforgettable lines:'With regard to methods of Schrodinger andHeisenberg on quantum mechanics, theystarted from basically different models.Schrodinger used smooth wave equationswhile Heisenberg used matrix arrays todescribe the positions and momentum.Within a year, Schrodinger proved theequivalence of the two by observing thatthe partial derivatives occurring in the waveequation were, in fact, infinite dimensionalmatrices. A more substantial example is theview of Abhinava Gupta about the 'ultimateexperience' (Sudarsan, 2004).

Nobel Price Controversy

There has been a lot of discussion, especiallyin India, about whether Sudarshan was

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denied a Nobel Prize. The contemporaryscientists worldwide have no doubt that hedeserved the prize. Many consider that heshould have been duly recognised for hisseminal contributions to the Standard Modelof particle physics, quantum optics, openquantum systems, the quantum Zeno effectand field theories of Tachyons. ButSudarshan was passed over for the PhysicsNobel Prize on more than one occasion, allleading to controversy.

First instant was in 1979. Sudarshan made asarcastic remark on not being selected for theNobel at that time: 'Steven Weinberg,Sheldon Glashow and Abdus Salam builton work I had done as a 26-year-old student.If you give a prize for a building, shouldn'tthe fellow who built the first floor be giventhe prize before those who built the secondfloor?'

When he was disregarded in 2005 severalphysicists wrote to the Swedish Academy,protesting that Sudarshan should have beenawarded a share of the Prize for theSudarshan diagonal representation alsoknown as Sudarshan-Glauber representationin quantum optics, for which Roy J. Glauberwon his share of the prize. Many physicistswrote to the Nobel Committee stating thatthe P representation had more contributionsof 'Sudarshan' than 'Glauber'. (Zhou, 2005)The letters also stated that Glauber criticizedSudarshan's theory - before renaming it asthe 'P representation' and incorporating itinto his own work.

Even as he missed the Nobel prize severaltimes, Sudarshan openly expressed hisanguish when the Royal Swedish Academyof Sciences chose to give a prize to R.J.Glauber in 2005 'for his contribution to thequantum theory of optical coherence',ignoring Sudarshan's work. In anunpublished letter to The New York Times,Sudarshan calls the 'Glauber-Sudarshanrepresentation' a misnomer, adding that'literally all subsequent theoreticdevelopments in the field of Quantum

Optics make use of Sudarshan's work-essentially, asserting that he had developedthe breakthrough. (Wikipedia, 2018). In2007, he told the Hindustan Times, 'The2005 Nobel prize for Physics was awardedfor my work, but I wasn't the one to get it.Each one of the discoveries that this Nobelwas given for work based on my research.

In a letter to the Academy, he said, 'In theannouncement of the 2005 Physics NobelPrize, the Swedish Royal Academy has chosenR.J. Glauber to be awarded half of the prize.The prizewinners are chosen by the RoyalAcademy, but no one has the right to takemy discoveries and formulations and ascribethem to someone else! (Wikipedia, 2018)

'The correct formulation of the quantummechanical treatment of optics was carriedout by me in my paper in 1963. In that Ishowed that every state can be representedin the diagonal form... This diagonalrepresentation is valid for all fields.

'The irony of the situation is that in spite ofall these facts being available in print, thediagonal representation instead of beingreferred to as the Sudarshan representationis dubbed as either the P-Representation (asif Glauber discovered and named it first) orat best as `Glauber-Sudarshan'Representation.

'While the distinction of introducingcoherent states as basic entities to describeoptical fields certainly goes to Glauber, thepossibility of using them to describe `all'optical fields (of all intensities) through thediagonal representation is certainly due toSudarshan. Thus there is no need to ̀ extract'the classical limit [as stated in the Nobelcitation]. Sudarshan's work is not merely amathematical formalism. It is the basictheory underlying all optical fields. All thequantum features are brought out in hisdiagonal representation. (Business Line)

'It is my belief that the Royal SwedishAcademy was impartial and that to assurethe proper priorities it has a Committee in



Physics, with members competent toexamine and understand the publishedwork. It was also my belief that the membersof the Committee did their work diligentlyand with care. I am therefore genuinelysurprised and disappointed by this year'schoice. It would distress many others andme if extra scientific considerations wereresponsible for this decision. It is my hopethat these glaring injustices would be notedby the Academy and it modify the citations.Give unto Glauber only what ishis'.(Sudarshan, 2005).

Awards and Recognition

Honors and recognition he received include:Doctor of Science (DSc) from University ofWisconsin, USA (1967), Delhi University,India (1973), University of Madras, India(1978), Gothenburg University, Sweden(1983), Bordhwan University, India (1989),Cochin University of Science, India (1993)and Harvard University, USA (1963) . He hasguided more than 35 students for PhD atdifferent universities. He served as VisitingProfessor at Brandies University , US;University of Berne, Swiss where Einsteingot his First Professorship; University ofMadras, University of Hyderabad, JubileeProfessor at Chalmes University ofGothenburg, Sweden and Viswa Bharati,India.

International and National Awards hereceived are: American Physical Society Fellow(1965), Bose Medal(1977), C V RamanAward (1970), Desikothama - by ViswaBharati (1997), Dirac Medal (2010) of theICTP which is known to be given out toscientists who have made substantialcontributions in theoretical physics,computational chemistry and mathematics,Elected Member of Society for thePhilosophy of Science(1989), Fellow ofIndian Academy of Sciences(1968), Fellowof Indian National Science Academy(1988),First Honorary Fellow of Central Instituteof English and other Foreign Languages(1989), Kerala Government Science and

Technology Award(1980), Kerala AsthmaPuraskaram for lifetime accomplishments inscience(2013), Majorana Prize(2006), PadmaBhushan, third highest civilian award fromthe Government of India(1976), PadmaVibhushan, second highest civilian awardfrom the Government of India, 2007(2007),Kerala State S&T Award , India (1976), SirCV Raman Award (1970), and the ThirdWorld Academy of Science Award inPhysics(1985).

Published Works

Some of his important works are'Elementary Particle Physics' jointly authoredwith Robert Marshall ' Introduction toQuantum Optics' with , John Klauder'Classical Dynamics' with N. Mukunda. Thereports he edited include those on'Conference of High-Energy Physics' (alongwith John Tinlot, Adrian Melissinos) 'Pauliand the Spin Statistics Theorem' with I.MDuck '100 years of the Quantum' 'Doubtand Certainty' with Tony Rothman 'Quantum Zeno Effect' with BaidyanathMishra 'Optical Equivalence Theorem. Hehas written more than 300 articles on Physicsand on General Topics. They include NehruMemorial Lecture - 'Physics as a spiritualdiscipline' and ' Equivalence of Semi-classicaland Mechanical Descriptions of statisticalLight Beams (Physical Review Letters). Adetailed bibliography of his works is includedin this issue of Informatics Studies.

Acknowledgement: This is a compilationbased on the Wikipedia entry on ECGSudarsan and also numerous write-ups byhis students and 'Friends of Sudarsan'Group and published obituaries. Animportant sources to be specially mentionedis Aravindan Neelakantan's writings. Andto be true my role is only summarizing andpolishing the document compiled by thosewho love the Professor.

References

Aswin Sekhar (2018). Big loss to theoreticalphysics’: Fellow scientists fondly remember

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ECG Sudarshan. Teh News Minute, May 16,2018 https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/big-loss-theoretical-physics-fellow-scientists-fondly-remember-ecg-sudarshan-81379

Mark Byrd. E.C.G. Sudarshan (1931-2018).The Quantum Times. May 28, 2018. http://thequantumtimes.org/2018/05/e-c-g-sudarshan-1931-2018/

Ganesh Krishnan R (2018). EminentPhysicist E C George Sudarshan Passes Away.The Organizer. 14-May-2018. http://www.organiser.org/Encyc/2018/5/14/Eminent-Physicist-E-C-George-Sudarshan-Passes-Away.html

Gautam Menon (2018). Obituary StatementOn ECG Sudarsan. Quoted in: Big loss totheoretical physics’ by Aswin Sekhar (2018).Teh News Minute, May 16, 2018

Jagannathan, R and Khan, S. A (1996).Quantum theory of the optics of chargedparticles. Advances in Imaging and ElectronPhysics, Ed by Peter W. Hawkes, B. Kazanand T. Mulvey. San Diego, Academic Press.

Jagannathan, R. Simon, R, Sudarshan, ECGand Mukunda, N (1989). Quantum theory ofmagnetic electron lenses based on the Diracequation, Physics Letters A, 134, 457-464(1989).

Mehra, J (1994). The beat of a differentdrum: The life and science of RichardFeynman. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Mehta, Neha (April 4, 2007). "Physicist criesfoul over Nobel miss". Hindustan Times.April 4, 2007.

Nahan, Paul, J. Time Machines: Time Travelin Physics, Metaphysics, and Science Fiction.Sudarshan, E. C. G.; Misra, B. (1977). TheZeno's paradox in quantum theory. Journal ofMathematical Physics. 18 (4).

Narayanan, Anand (2013). All I know is howto do physics: An Interview of Prof. ECGSudarsan. The Hindu, January 23, 2013.

Neelakandan, Aravindan (2018). GeorgeSudarshan - A Lifelong Pursuit Of Science

And Vedanta. Swarajyamag. May 15,2018,https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/george-sudarshan-a-lifelong-pursuit-of-science-and-vedanta

Rajagopal Kammath (2018). Nobel panel'sattitude shook ECG Sudarshan. DecanChronicle. May 15, 2018. https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/150518/nobel-panels-attitude-shook-ecg-sudarshan.html

Richardson, W. Mark, Ed. (2002). "GeorgeSudarshan". Science and the Spiritual Quest:New Essays by Leading Scientists. Routledge.

Shaji, Anil (2018). Remembering E.C.G.Sudarshan, a Seminal Theoretical Physicist.The Wire. 15 May 2018. https://thewire.in/the-sciences/remembering-e-c-g-sudarshan-a-seminal-theoretical-physicist

Sudarsan, George (2004). Letter to AravindNeelaknatan. Quoted by him in Op Cit.Neelakandan, Aravindan (2018).

Sudarshan, George (2002), 'One Quest, OneKnowledge' In 'Science And The SpiritualQuest' (Ed. Richardson Et Al), Routledge.

Sudarshan, George E C and Misra, B. (1977).The Zeno's paradox in quantum theory.Journal of Mathematical Physics. 18 (4).

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University of Texas (2006). Sudarsan: SevenScience Quests Symposium. Organized inassociation with Friends of Sudarsan. Austin,The author, November 6-7 2006

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Zhou, Lulu (2005). "Scientists QuestionNobel". The Harvard Crimson. December 6,2005 http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/first_runner-up/


Documents

ECG Sudarshan: The Vedantin Physicist - Informatics Studies