Rooksha

Eminent scientist E.C. George Sudarshan on growing up in Kerala, his tryst with physics and on the state of research in India The physicist Hans Bethe once said, “There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it.” In the world of science, every so often we come across visionaries, ‘magicians’ in the words of Bethe, who dare to perceive the world in ways no one else has before. E.C. George Sudarshan is one of them. From formulating fundamental ideas in particle physics to understanding the quantum nature of light, Dr. Sudarshan’s contributions to physics read like a fascinating chapter from the book of breakthroughs in science of the past century. Born in Kottayam in 1931, E C G Dr. Sudarshan studied at the CMS College and later at the Madras Christian College, the University of Madras and the