Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
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
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
Science outreach
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
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