IUCAA - Khagol # 129 - Oct 2022 - English

| KHAG L | No. 129 - OCTOBER 2022 | 07 Kameshwar Wali passed away on January 14 , 2022 at the age of 94, leaving behind a wealth of work ranging from high energy physics to the recent history of Indian science. As he believed in solid work rather than publicity, his name is not well known as it deserves to be. This article presents a partial viewof this remarkable personality. Kameshwar C. (Chanabasappa) Wali was born in Bijapur, Karnataka in 1927, one of seven children of a civil servant in the British Colonial system. Kameshwar did his undergraduate studies at the Raja Lakhamagouda Science Institute in Belgaum affiliated to Bombay University. After acquiring B.Sc. degree with distinction in 1948, he was appointed there as lecturer in physics. In 1950, Wali continued graduate studies at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He received his M.Sc. in physics in 1952 and was appointed lecturer in the Science College of the University. While teaching, he studied for M.A. (mathematics) and completed the course in 1954, winning the Chancellor Gold Medal, the highest honour of the University. To pursue his interest in theoretical physics, he proceeded to the USA in 1955, for his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. By then he was married to Kashi Kulkarni, a fellow student at BHU and had three daughters, who joined him in the United States where he continued his long, distinguished career mainly at the SyracuseUniversity (SU). Not satisfied, however, with pursuing solely his own research, Wali became interested in the history of science and was invited to become a founding member of the Forum on the History of Physics within the APS. Fascinated by the history of the white dwarf and the Chandrasekhar limit, he interacted with Nobel Laureate Professor Chandrasekhar (known as Chandra by his scientist colleagues) to document details of the episode. This led to the publication of the seminal article (Chandrasekhar vs. Eddington - an unanticipated confrontation), which he followed up by writing the book called Chandra which is a biography of S. Chandrasekhar, published in 1991 by the University of Chicago Press. I t has been warml y rece i ved by international public and scientific readership, and has been translated into French, Chinese and Kannada and continues to be widely disseminated. Writings by Wali on Chandrasekhar provided great visibility for a highly private and modest man, who remains a giant in the world of science. Indeed, the Chandrasekhar story has inspired many Indian scientists to persevere in pursuit of a career in science no matter the obstacles. Even two decades after the publication of the biography, Wali kept receiving letters of admiration and appreciation for this literarywork. Continuing in this vein, Wali was involved in bringing to light the contributions of two other great men of science of India of the 20th century: Satyendra Nath Bose and Jagdish Chandra Bose. History tells us that in 1924, Satyendra Nath Bose (1894- 1974), then a relatively unknown young man, wrote to Einstein forwarding his paper claiming that he had solved Planck law for blackbody radiation without recourse to classical electrodynamics. Bose requested that if Einstein thought the work important, could he arrange its publication in Zeitschrift fur Physik., as he, Bose, did not know German very well. Einstein did think it was important and he translated the paper himself and got it published. The interaction between Bose and Einstein, led to the birth of the new quantum statistics which became known as Bose-Einstein Statistics. In 2005, at the special session of APSmeeting celebrating the centenary of Einstein's miracle year 1905, Wali was invited to present the history of the Bose-Einstein statistics. That resulted in his article for Physics Today in 2006, titled The Man behind the Statistics followed by an edited annotated volume of the papers of Bose published by World Scientific Publishing Company in 2009. The book brings needed visibility to the full range of Bose's work, including his collaboration with Albert Einstein. Although the Bose-Einstein statistics is well known, the man himself was little known outside India. In India, he was often confused with the famous 19th century scientist, Jagdish Chandra Bose (1858- 1937), whose legacy as the founder of experimental physics, poet and philosopher, and popularizer of science is perhaps unparalleled. Wali documented his incredible achievements in an invited talk on the occasion of the celebration of his 150th birth anniversary inCalcutta. Wali made significant theoretical contributions to the field of high energy particle physics. He was a Member of the American Physical Society (APS), the recipient of the India Chapter award of the Society and the recipient of the Syracuse University Chancellor Citation for exceptional academic achievement. In sum, ProfessorWali hasmade invaluable contributions to Indian science, both through his own research and through his pioneering archival work on the history of towering figures of India. He has also mentored many young Indian physicists who have gone to the United States to study. Most importantly, his writings about Indian born scientists have made the early contributions of India to science internationally known. An indication of how highly he was regarded in his field, his University, the University of Syracuse has established an annual Kameshwar Wali Lecture in his honour. Distinguished academics have spoken in the Wali lecture series. Wali has made threefold contributions: (i) Research in high energy particle physics (ii) Teaching and motivating many bright students to research in fundamental physics and (iii) Writing about the pioneeringwork of early Indian scientists. Jayant Narlikar TRIBUTES TO Kameshwar Wali: Researcher, Teacher and Student