Thanu Padmanabhan

Thanu Padmanabhan (born 10 March 1957) is an

Indian theoretical physicist and cosmologist whose research spans a wide variety of topics in Gravitation,
Structure formation in the universe and Quantum Gravity. He has published more than 260 papers and reviews
in international journals and ten books in these areas.
Many of his contributions, especially those related to the
analysis and modelling of dark energy in the universe and
the interpretation of gravity as an emergent phenomenon,
have made signicant impact in the eld. He is currently
a Distinguished Professor at the Inter-University Centre
for Astronomy and Astrophysics, (IUCAA) at Pune, India.

He is married to Vasanthi Padmanabhan, who has a Ph.D.

in astrophysics from TIFR, Mumbai and has one daughter, Hamsa Padmanabhan, who has a Ph.D. in astrophysics from IUCAA, Pune.

2 Awards and distinctions

Padmanabhan has received several national and international awards including:
Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Prize in
Physics (2011)[1]
Infosys Science Foundation Prize for Physical Sciences (2009)[2]

Life and career

J.C.Bose National Fellowship (DST) (2008)

Born in 1957, Padmanabhan did his schooling in
Thiruvananthapuram and earned his B.Sc. (1977) and
M.Sc. (1979) in Physics, securing Gold Medals in both
for graduating at the top of his class, from the University College, Kerala University. He published his rst research paper (on general relativity) when he was still a
B.Sc. student, at the age of 20. He joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai in 1979
for his Ph.D. and became a faculty member there in 1980.
He held various faculty positions at TIFR during 19801992 and also spent a year (in 1986-87) at the Institute of
Astronomy, Cambridge. He moved to IUCAA in 1992
and served as its Dean, Core Academic Programmes, for
18 years (1997-2015).

INSA Vainu Bappu Gold Medal (2007)[3]

Padma Shri (from the President of India, 2007)[4]
Miegunah Fellowship Award (University of Melbourne, Australia, 2004)
Homi Bhabha Fellowship (2003)
G.D. Birla Award for Scientic Research (2003)
Al-Khwarizmi International Award (2002)
The Millennium Medal (CSIR, 2000)
Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award (1996) [5]

Padmanabhan has also served as Adjunct Faculty of

The Birla Science Prize (1991) [6]
the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Mumbai),
the Harish-Chandra Research Institute (Allahabad), the
Young Scientist Award, (Indian National Science
Raman Research Institute (Bangalore) and the Indian InAcademy) (1984) [7]
stitute of Science, Education and Research (IISER, Pune)
at dierent periods in his career. He is currently adjunct
His research work has won prizes seven times (in 1984,
faculty of IISER, Mohali.
2002, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2014) including the
He was the elected President of the Cosmology Com- First Prize in 2008 from the Gravity Research Foundamission (2009-2012) of the International Astronomical tion, USA.[8]
Union (IAU) and Chairman of the Astrophysics Commission (2011-2014) of the International Union of Pure and
Applied Physics (IUPAP). He has also been a Visiting
Faculty at many institutes including the California Insti- 3 Research contributions
tute of Technology, Princeton University, and a Sackler
Distinguished Astronomer of the Institute of Astronomy, Padmanabhans work in the last decade, interpreting
Cambridge. He is also an elected fellow of TWAS and gravity as an emergent phenomenon, has far-reaching imthe three National Academies of Science in India.
plications both for quantum gravity and for the nature of
1

5 MAIN PUBLICATIONS

dark energy, and it has made a deep impact on the subject. He provided a clear interpretation of gravity as an
emergent phenomenon and showed that this paradigm extends to a wide class of theories of gravitation including,
but not limited to, general relativity. Padmanabhan could
also show that several peculiar aspects of classical gravitational theories nd natural interpretations in this approach. This approach also provides a novel solution to
the cosmological constant problem.[9] He has given two
lectures at the Oxford-Cambridge collaborative conference on Cosmology and the Constants of Nature about
this.[10][11]
Popular descriptions of his work have been published in
Scientic American (India),[12] and a more technical description is available in an article from the Gravity Research Foundation in 2008, that describes his First Prize
work. Another popular article about his work which appeared in a German science magazine along with the
English translation is available in his home page. Also
available is an interview of Padmanabhan by George
Musser about his work.[13]
Padmanabhans early work was in quantum cosmology,
structure formation in the universe and statistical mechanics of gravitating systems. In the 1980s, he provided
an interpretation of the Planck length as the `zero-point
length' of the spacetime based on very general considerations. This result, established by theoretical considerations and well-chosen thought experiments, nds an echo
in more recent results in several other candidate models
for quantum gravity. He has made signicant contributions to the study of statistical mechanics of gravitating
systems and was a pioneer in the systematic application
of these concepts to study the gravitational clustering in
an expanding universe.

Pedagogical activities

5.1 Technical books

Padmanabhan has authored several advanced level textbooks which are acclaimed as magnicent achievements
and used worldwide as standard references.
Quantum Field Theory: The Why, What and How,
Springer, Heidelberg (2016)
Sleeping Beauties in Theoretical Physics: 26 Surprising Insights, Springer, Heidelberg (2015)
Gravitation: Foundations and Frontiers, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, (2010)
An Invitation to Astrophysics, World Scientic, Singapore, (2006) ,
Theoretical Astrophysics - Volume III : Galaxies
and Cosmology, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (2002)
Theoretical Astrophysics - Volume II : Stars and
Stellar Systems, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (2001)
Theoretical Astrophysics - Volume I : Astrophysical
Processes, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
(2000) - Review
Cosmology and Astrophysics through Problems,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (1996)
Review
Structure Formation in the Universe, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, (1993) - Review
Gravity, Gauge Theories and Quantum Cosmology,
(co-authored with J.V. Narlikar), Reidel (1986)

Padmanabhan has given several lecture courses in India 5.2 Review articles
and abroad.
Emergent Gravity Paradigm: Recent Progress, Mod.
Phys. Letters A, 30, 1540007 (2015)
A 50-hour course on Quantum Field Theory, (avail Statistical Mechanics of Gravitating Systems, Physics
able on YouTube).
Reports, Vol.188, pp. 285362 (1990)
A one-semester course of lectures on General Rela Cosmological Constant - the Weight of the Vacuum,
tivity given by him.
Physics Reports, Vol. 380, pp. 235320 (2003)
Another set of lectures (15 hours) given by him
on Advanced Topics in General relativity at the
'troisieme cycle de la physique en suisse romande'
course (Geneva, Switzerland).

Main publications

Thermodynamical Aspects of Gravity: New insights,

Reports in Progress of Physics, 73, 046901 (2010)
Lessons from Classical Gravity about the Quantum Structure of Spacetime, J.Phys.Conf.Ser.,
306:012001 (2011)
Physical signicance of Planck length, Annals of
Physics, Vol. 165, pp. 38, (1985)

Science outreach

[11] Video : Cosmological constants - Part 2 (Thanu Padmanabhan)

Apart from his scientic research, Padmanabhan has [12] Article : Scientic American (India)
given many popular science lectures (several of which are
available on YouTube) and authored more than a hundred [13] Video : Interview of Padmanabhan by George Musser
popular science articles published in various national and
international journals. He has also authored two popular
science books:
8 External links
Quantum Themes: The Charms of the Microworld,
World Scientic, Singapore, (2009)
After the First Three Minutes - The Story of Our
Universe, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
(1998)
Some of his other contributions are:
The Story of Physics, a comic strip serialised in
the magazine Science Age, from Sept. 84 to Dec.
86; published in book form by Vigyan Prasar, New
Delhi, (2002) and now translated into several Indian
regional languages.
The IYA Astronomical Diary - 2009, 53 illustrated pages of astronomical information, celebrating the International Year of Astronomy (2009)
(with J.V.Narlikar and Samir Dhurde).
Dawn of Science - a 24 instalment set of articles on
the early history of all branches of science published
in the journal 'Resonance' in 2010-2012 [based on a
set of articles originally published in Science Today
from Jan 1990 to April 1992].

References

[1] Announcement of TWAS Prize in Physics (2011)

[2] List of Laureates - Infosys Prize 2009
[3] List of Recipients of INSA Medals
[4] Padma Awards (PDF). Ministry of Home Aairs, Government of India. 2015. Retrieved July 21, 2015.
[5] Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize: Prole of the Awardee
[6] List of B. M. Birla Science Prizes
[7] List of recipients of INSA medal for young scientists
1974-2014
[8] Article : Gravity : An Emergent Perspective
[9] T. Padmanabhan, Hamsa Padmanabhan, Cosmological
constant from the emergent gravity perspective, Int. Jour.
Mod. Phys., D 23, 1430011 (2014)
[10] Video : Cosmological constants - Part 1 (Thanu Padmanabhan)

Thanu Padmanabhans Home page

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