Alladi Ramakrishnan

Alladi Ramakrishnan (9 August 1923 – 7 June 2008) was an Indian physicist and the founder of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc) in Chennai. He made contributions to stochastic process, particle physics, algebra of matrices, special theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Early life Ramakrishnan was born on 9 August 1923 in Madras. His father was the lawyer Sir Alladi Krishnaswami Iyer, who, as a member of the Constituent Assembly, was instrumental in drafting the Constitution of India with other prominent members. He had his early education in P. S. High School, Madras. He graduated from Presidency College, Madras, with B.Sc. (Hons) degree in physics. As a student of the college he had wanted to work under Sir C. V. Raman. When his father consulted Raman, Raman suggested reading Lehrbuch der theoretischen Physik by Georg Joos. Ramakrishnan studied the book and developed an interest in theoretical physics and special relativity in particular.

Career After completing his studies at Presidency College, Ramakrishnan started working with Homi Bhabha at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). At TIFR, Bhabha introduced him to Cascade Theory and Fluctuation Problem of Cosmic Radiation. In August 1949, he left for England to work under M. S. Bartlett at the University of Manchester. Ramakrishnan's work on Product Densities that he did while at TIFR was good enough work for a PhD. But he stayed in Manchester for two more years to complete his residency requirements. His work on Product Densities appeared in the Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society. While in India, Bohr visited Dr. Ramakrishnan's family home, and inspired the creation of an institute for advanced research.

Ramakrishnan travelled and lectured extensively during his years at Matscience, holding lectures at over 200 centers of learning. He was unusually generous with providing opportunity and leave for his Ph.D. students to travel to centers of learning abroad, firmly believing that this was of benefit to his students and that research was an international activity, even if this brought with it the risk of losing talented students to other institutions. After retiring, Ramakrishnan continued to teach and inspire. In the last decades of his life, several high school students and undergraduates came to his home in Madras to learn with him, subsequently pursuing higher studies in the United States towards a career of research. He died on 7 June 2008 at his son's home in Gainesville, Florida.