Driven by quests: Hearing aids & polarized glasses for space-time murmurs

Abstract : Scientific quests, especially grand ones, have always pushed the boundaries of technical capability. Deeper recognition of this aspect of fundamental science may lead to its broader acceptance in any society and its nation. The talk offers but a glimpse of this primarily through quests that the speaker has been personally involved. Talk highlights technology that enabled the recent discovery of gravitational waves from astrophysical bodies, or that required for the ongoing quest to discover primeval gravitational waves from the birth of our Universe.

About the speaker : Prof. Tarun Souradeep graduated as an engineer from IIT Kanpur (1988). After short stint in automobile design decided to pursue a PhD in Gravitation and Cosmology at IUCAA (1995). After postdoctoral work at the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), as a faculty member at IUCAA since 2000, he has built and led a cosmology subgroup on Cosmic Microwave background (CMB) studies. Souradeep led the sole Indian group within the international team of the Planck CMB space mission of the European Space Agency. His contribution to science has received international recognition. He has been elected fellow of the International Society on General Relativity & Gravitation in 2013 and is a co-recipient of the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics 2016, Gruber Cosmology prize 2016 for the recent discovery of gravitational waves. He is also recipient of a number of awards in India, including, Swarnajayanti fellowship, NASI-Scopus award, B.M. Birla Prize. Vikram Sarabhai research award and is a fellow of the Indian academy of Sciences. He serves as the spokesperson and a project coordinator for the LIGO-India mega-science project for the construction and operation of gravitational wave observatory on Indian soil.