Ashoke Sen delivers the S K Memorial Lecture on “Gravity from Strings and Strings from Gravity” at Calcutta University on Wednesday
This was his first visit to Calcutta University (CU) — the institution Presidency College was affiliated with when he graduated in 1975 — to deliver the lecture. Dressed in a T-shirt, cargo pants and simple sandals, Sen entered Centenary Hall around 4 pm. The College Street campus auditorium was filled to capacity with people eager to listen to his 45-minute speech.
Kolkata: “International recognition does not require going abroad,” Ashoke Sen, the first Indian physicist to win the Oskar Klein Medal for his research in string theory, said on Wednesday on his visit to Calcutta University to deliver the S K Memorial Lecture on “Gravity from Strings and Strings from Gravity”. Vice-Chancellor Asutosh Ghosh said, “It is a great honour for us to have him deliver his lecture at our university. Sen, a theoretical physicist from Kolkata who worked on string theory and inspired scientists to think about black holes, fundamental forces and the deep logic of nature in a new way, came straight to Kolkata after winning the award. There was pin-drop silence throughout the lecture as Sen each formula in a simple manner. We are overwhelmed by the feedback from the students. We want more such programmes to be organised, and our professors will keep in touch with him in this regard.”