IUCAA - Khagol # 129 - Oct 2022 - English

| KHAG L | No. 129 - OCTOBER 2022 | 03 I have known himsince his graduate days in TIFR, and we have enjoyed mutual respect and admiration for each-other. He has worked through with his fellow students the fat black book, MTW -- Misner, Thorne, Wheeler from cover to cover, and so was also the case with Landau and Lifshitz volumes. Feynmann Lectures moved him from mathematics to physics. All this shows how serious and thorough student hewas. Feynmann had famously said that a good physicist should be able to derive any equation or formula at least in three different ways. He lived by this dictum and usually doing more than three. Similarly there was a seminal pronouncement by Donal Lynden-Bell, if one did not a few wrong papers, one had not fully stretched one's intellectual and creative prowess. Paddy adapted this dictum as well in right earnest and the result was astounding. Paddy: the incredible ! In the 1979 Einstein centenary conference in Ahmedabad, the organizers had also invited some talented undergrad students, Paddy was one of them. As was his wont, he couldn't help being noticed, in almost all lectures being given by the world leaders, Roger Penrose, Ted Newman and the like, he would ask meaningful and searching questions in clear confident voice. That is how like many others I first heard, not met, him. And this announced his arrival as one of the brilliant and sharpest young students. Naresh Dadhich Somak Raychaudhury AGreatTeacher, MentorandFriend I have known Padmanabhan for over 35 years and he was my mentor and friend. I met him during my first year as a Ph.D. student in Cambridge, when he was spending a year there as a Visiting fellow. I was awestruck by his lightning-sharp mind. He had not changed a bit in any of these in all these years. He became a mentor and a friend and I would go to him, as would many others, to seek his opinion, both on the interpretation of scientific concepts, as well as dilemmas in administrative matters. His insights were always a deeply incisive, but down-to- earth. Paddy was deeply engaged in all levels of academic progress. Not only did he carry out path-breaking research in many branches of science, but he also had a deep interest and understanding of the scientific thought process. He had uncompromising standards for all levels of scientific engagement and innovation. Padmanabhan’s textbooks are highly original, and among the most widely read and each of his popular books on science are unique in every way. His indomitable wit shines through all his books. He was also deeply interested in the long tradition of Indian science and wrote a book on the subject, co-authored with his wife Vasanthi. He was very young in outlook andmind, and deeply committed to training young people. He had a long way to go. This is a loss beyond repair not just for his friends, students and associates, but for the Indian science community at large Where he had dared to go and explore new vistas, many others in his peer group hesitated and could not muster enough courage to break newpath. He had glorious legacy of Fred Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar to ride on and carry forward. Like his illustrious and iconic predecessors, he had done remarkably on this count, be it harbouring and raring new and bold ideas, or seminal and pathbreaking contributions to gravitational physics and cosmology, or writing research monographs and textbooks on the lines of classic Landau and Lifshitz series on one hand and Weinberg's authoritative text on the other, or science communication and popular comic books. The question one has to ask, how did he fare on the critical measure, what he inherited and how enriched did he leave