B. V. Sreekantan

At 98 years old, B. V. Sreekantan physical status not available right now. We will update B. V. Sreekantan's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Sreekantan stayed at TIFR for 39 years, and before his retirement from TIFR service in 1987, he served as the director of the institute from 1975. At TIFR, he initiated many research streams in cosmic ray physics and astrophysics and the research team he established for studies in high energy cosmic rays is still active. One of his early assignments at TIFR was the study of cosmic-ray-produced muons detected deep underground and Sreekantan conducted experiments at Kolar Gold Mines in Karnataka, for the detection of the elementary particles at 2760 m deep. Though his experiments failed to find cosmic ray produced muons, he continued his search, which resulted in the detection of cosmic ray produced neutrinos, reportedly the first detection of the subatomic particles at such depth. His experiments served as the base of his doctoral thesis on the intensity and angular distribution of muons at different depths, prepared under the guidance of Homi Bhabha. A noted Italian experimental physicist, Bruno Rossi of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, examined the thesis and Mumbai University awarded him PhD in 1954.

Sreekantan's first stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954 was when he worked with Rossi on cloud chambers and K-mesons. During that trip, he visited several laboratories in the UK and France to familiarize himself with the advances in high energy physics. He also visited Brookhaven National Laboratory and conducted experiments on K-meson decay which resulted in the publication of three scientific papers, jointly written with Herbert S. Bridge and others. Once back at TIFR, he started a new series of balloon-borne experiments for studying cosmic X-ray sources above 20 keV which helped in the future development of X-ray detectors for X-ray astronomy missions. Three X-ray instruments developed by his group were carried on the Astrosat, the first Indian multiwavelength astronomy observatory, which was launched in October 2015.

Sreekantan was known to have furthered the studies of Homi Bhabha and Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi on the lifespan and decay spectrum of muons. He set up his laboratory using war-surplus goods from World War II procured by TIFR as well as from other sources and with the assistance of H. L. N. Murthy, an expert in glass work, who helped him in the development of Geiger counters, he measured the lifespan of the positive muons as 2.24±0.15 microseconds. His findings were published in the Indian journal, Proceedings of Indian Academy of Sciences in 1951.

When a joint team of Durham University, UK, Osaka City University, and TIFR started experiments for studying neutrinos at a depth of 2.3 km, Sreekantan was a part of the team which recorded 18 events of neutrino interactions in rock. He was also a member of the team that worked on the Grand Unification Theory, to detect the decay of protons in subterranean environment, in the 1970s, the other members of the team included M. G. K. Menon. He assisted Homi Bhabha in the installation of two cloud chambers, Rani and Maharani at the cosmic ray laboratory in Ooty in 1954. Later, a larger cloud chamber, the largest one in India till then, and an air shower array were also set up there, with his assistance. He also designed, together with Subramanian and Ramamurthy, a total absorption spectrometer and an air Cherenkov counter, and the experiments revealed to Sreekantan and his associate, S. C. Tonwar, that increase in energy was an influential factor in the increase of nucleon-anti nucleon production cross section. Their findings have been published in Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) journal in 1979. Along with R. H. Vatcha, he measured charged to neutral (C/N) ratio for high energy hadrons in showers of 1014–1016 eV energy range and arrived at the conclusion that copious production of baryons in high energy interactions is inevitable. These experiments confirmed baryon production in hadron-air nucleus collisions at 1015 eV.

As the director of the TIFR, he was instrumental in the establishment of several research centres such as Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education Mumbai, National Centre for Biological Sciences Bengaluru, National Centre for Radio Astrophysics Pune and TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics, Bengaluru. His contributions are also reported in the expansion of the TIFR Balloon Facility at Hyderabad. It was during his tenure that the Pelletron Accelerator, a joint project of the TIFR and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre was approved. He inspired Govind Swarup to prepare the proposal for the establishment of the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) at Khodad, Pune. It was under his directorship, TIFR staff was included in the BARC contributory health service scheme. He also initiated a staff pension scheme, the proposal for company quarters for TIFR employees, subsidised housing loans and welfare schemes for lower grade staff.

After his retirement from TIFR, Sreekantan was offered the INSA Srinivasa Ramanujan chair which he held till 1992, when he moved to the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) in Bengaluru, accepting the Radhakrishnan Visiting Professor chair. At NIAS, he was involved in the studies related to the application of physics and mathematical tools in processing biological systems, along with R. L. Kapur, a notable psychiatrist, and continued with the studies after the death of Kapur in 2006.

Sreekantan was associated with several notable scientific personalities such as Homi Bhabha, M. G. K. Menon, Raja Ramanna, S. Naranan, R. L. Kapur, Ramanath Cowsik, V. S. Narasimham, S. V. Damle and G. S. Gokhale. He delivered many keynote addresses at national and international conferences, mentored many scientists in their doctoral research and was the author of over 300 scientific papers. He was also credited with the publication of five books, either as the author or editor.

His studies have been documented by way of one book, Extensive Air Showers and a number of articles. He wrote a monograph on Cosmic Rays : Current Status and Future Directions for Homi Bhabha Fellowships Council (unknown if finished before his death). He also wrote three books namely, Remembering Einstein: Lectures on Physics and Astrophysics, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Consciousness and the Self and Nature’s Longest Threads: New Frontiers in Mathematics and Physics of Information in Biology as well as several articles on general science topics for the propagation of science.

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