Further Findings

University of Texas at Austin physicist E.C. George Sudarshan will share the 2010 Dirac Medal and Prize with Italian physicist Nicola Cabibbo for their work on the fundamental forces of nature.

The prize is given by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy.

The award recognizes the physicists’ fundamental contributions to the understanding of weak interactions and other aspects of theoretical physics. The weak interaction is one of the four fundamental forces of nature, along with strong interaction, electromagnetism and gravity. It is crucial to the structure of the universe, as it, among other things, causes fusion in the sun.

Find out more about the award Texas Science and Physics World.

In 2006, the Friends of George Sudarshan–colleagues, associates, former students and students–held a symposium in his honor. It was called, Sudarshan: 7 Science Quests.

Here is a description of the symposium:

When one reads George Sudarshan’s many seminal papers on a variety of subjects, one becomes aware of how unique he is. On the one hand, he has been enormously prolific—authoring over 400 important papers—and his work is credited with elucidating several important topics in physics and impacting many leading physicists.

The deep common thread lying at the core of his efforts is an attempt to resolve the fundamental conflict between descriptions of objects (”being”) and processes (”becoming”). There is a unifying theme in George’s work—irreversible processes and transformations (including decay, measurements, etc) in strictly reversible dynamical quantum systems. The understanding of this contradiction is still unsolved, and is fundamental. Through what can be categorized as seven quests, George has made major contributions in trying to piece this puzzle together. These seven of George’s major Science Quests are the focus of a symposium Sudarshan: Seven Science Quests. His efforts are ongoing—The Quest continues.

Read more at http://www.ph.utexas.edu/fogs/symposium/sudarshan_sympquests.html.

Videos of the lectures are available including one given by Sudarshan.