Mayank Chhaya pays tribute to Indian astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar who passed away at the age of 86 in Pune | SAM Vignette
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00:00The passing of the eminent astrophysicist, Jayant Narliker, at age 86 today, brings back memories of my only interview with him 40 years ago.
00:10He was 46 then, already a well-respected astrophysicist, best known for being a co-developer of the steady-state theory of the universe, along with his mentor, the British mathematician and astronomer, Fred Hoyle.
00:26I was 24, somewhat wet behind my ears, but reasonably well-read in physics.
00:33I met Dr. Narliker at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, or TIFR, in Bombay.
00:40The city was still called Bombay then.
00:43I remember him to be soft-spoken to a fault, but very firmly grounded in the fundamentals of physics.
00:49As a co-developer and confident proponent of the steady-state theory of the universe, Dr. Narliker was in the minority of physicists who supported it as opposed to the Big Bang theory.
01:02Ironically, the term Big Bang was coined by Hoyle as a term of ridicule for the theory that holds that the universe began with a Big Bang.
01:12Dr. Narliker chuckled while pointing that out.
01:15The steady-state theory essentially holds that the universe is always expanding, but maintains a constant average density.
01:24It remains steady, in a sense, unlike the Big Bang.
01:28Also, according to the theory, the universe has no beginning or end in time.
01:34I had asked Dr. Narliker if that meant the Big Bang was a local phenomenon that did not significantly alter the overall steady-state of the universe.
01:43He implied that may have been the case.
01:47I found it memorable that despite the apparent similarity, Dr. Narliker did not say that the steady-state theory's idea that the universe had no beginning or end in time was quite akin to the Hindu view of the cosmos.
02:02Dr. Narliker's family background was such that it seemed inevitable that he would pursue a path that he did.
02:08He was born on July 19, 1938, in Kodapur, Maharashtra, to Vishnu Vasudev Narliker, who was a renowned mathematician, and Sumati Narliker, a scholar of the Sanskrit language.
02:23After pursuing his early education in Varanasi, he moved to the University of Cambridge, where he completed his PhD under the mentorship of Sir Fred Hoyle.
02:34Apart from being an astrophysicist, Dr. Narliker was also a widely followed popularizer of science, as well as a prolific writer both in English and his mother-tongue Marathi.
02:47In 2014, India's preeminent literary body, the Saithi Akadami, selected his autobiography for its highest prize in regional language writing.
02:58As I left him after my interview that day in 1985, he said something that has remained with me all these years.
03:08He said, young man, keep reading physics.
03:12I did that even before he said that, and continue to do so.
03:17Here is to Dr. Jainth Narliker.
03:19Let's finish.