This is part of its efforts to popularize science to the General Public and Students who are pursuing science as their career. TNSF attempt to focus on students on higher science as everyone knows
that learning of science at college within the curriculum is not enough to acquire holistic knowledge of science at the appropriate time. Hence, to fill the gap between what students are acquiring through the curriculum and what
it is required, TNSF is planning its activities on higher science to students who are pursuing higher education
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2019 was awarded "for contributions to our understanding of the evolution of the universe and Earth's place in the cosmos" with one half to James Peebles "for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology", the other half jointly to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz "for the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting a solar-type star."
The search for Extra-solar planets (popularly known as Exoplanets) was professionally initiated by Captain William Stephen Jacob, the then director of Madras Observatory in 1855 and finally Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz of Geneva Observatory discovered the first confirmed planets outside the Solar system for which they are awarded the Nobel Prize. We shall also describe that the ultimate aim of this field is to answer if life exists beyond the Earth and the current status towards achieving an answer to the eternal curiosity of mankind "Are we alone?"
Dr. L. Sriramkumar
Professor, The Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai
Cosmology and the work of James Peebles
Dr. SUJAN SENGUPTA, Ph.D.
Professor, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru
From Madras Observatory to Geneva Observatory : The Quest for Exo-Worlds
Question & Answer
Dr. L. Sriramkumar is a Professor at the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. He works on various aspects of Gravitation and Cosmology. He had carried out his doctoral thesis under the supervision of T. Padmanabhan at the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. He has been a post-doctoral fellow of Jacob Bekenstein (who proposed the concept of black hole entropy, referred to as the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy) at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, and Don Page (a doctoral student of Stephen Hawking, who has, for instance, examined the thermal properties of certain space-times leading to a concept called the Hawking-Page phase transition )at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He was a member of the faculty at the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Allahabad, before moving to the Indian Institute of Technology Madras.
Dr. Sujan Sengupta, Ph.D, is Professor at Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru. He has done his Ph.D. in Physics from Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore (degree awarded by Bangalore University 1997). His research interest in Theoretical Astrophysics : Atmosphere of Brown Dwarfs and Extra-solar planets; Neutron stars. He is Member of International Astronomical Union (IAU), Division IV (commission 36) and also Life Member of Astronomical Society of India (ASI).