BV Sreekantan 100th birth anniversary: Tributes paid to Karnataka-born cosmic ray physicist

Mumbai: Rich tributes were paid to Karnataka-born Prof. Badanaval Venkatasubba Sreekantan, the pioneering cosmic-ray physicist and a member of Dr Homi Bhabha’s team of young scientists, on the centenary of his birth anniversary, on Monday.

BV Sreekantan (30 June 1925 – 27 October 2019) had served as Director of the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) for 12 long years, and it was during his tenure that he expanded TIFR and built its affiliate institutions, which today have grown to be world-class scientific institutions.

“Prof Sreekantan’s life was a shining example of intellectual integrity, humility, and nation-building,” said Shivaprasad Khened, the former Director of Nehru Science Centre-Mumbai and Nehru Science Centre-Delhi.

Prof Sreekantan was one of the earliest scientists to join TIFR (1948), an institution built by the legendary Homi Bhabha, the father of atomic research in India. His early works at TIFR revolved around cosmic ray physics, focusing on muons and extensive air showers. His experiments at various altitudes and underground locations laid critical foundations for India’s place in high-energy physics.

His most significant scientific achievement was his leadership in the Kolar Gold Fields (KGF) underground experiments, which led to one of the world’s first detections of atmospheric neutrinos in the mid-1960s—an accomplishment that preceded similar detections in Japan (Masatoshi Koshiba’s Nobel Prize-winning works) and Italy.

“These experiments, conducted almost 3 kilometres below ground, became global benchmarks in deep underground particle physics,” pointed out Khened, who is currently an Advisor to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai.

According to him, during the 12 transformative years that Prof Sreekanthan headed TIFR as its Director (1975-1987) he not only expanded scientific research in cosmic rays and particle physics but also oversaw the birth of four major centres of TIFR, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (Mumbai), National Centre for Biological Sciences (Bengaluru), National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (Pune), TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics (Bengaluru), that are now world class institutions.

Under his stewardship, TIFR remained at the cutting edge of research while also extending its reach into education, biology, astrophysics, and applied mathematics.

He also played a key role in the initiatives of the National Council of Science Museums (NCSM).

He oversaw the inauguration of Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai on 11 November 1985 by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and played a key role in establishing NCSM’s first satellite science centre in Dharampur, Gujarat, in 1984.

“Even after retiring from TIFR, Prof. Sreekantan did not slow down. He held the INSA Ramanujan Chair, and in 1992, joined the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, as the Radhakrishnan Visiting Professor. Here, he embarked on an intellectual odyssey into the intersections of science, philosophy, and consciousness,” pointed out Khened, one of the leading science popularisation experts of India.

Some of his seminal publications from this period include: Nature’s Longest Threads: New Frontiers of Mathematics, Physics and Biology (2014), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Consciousness and the Self (2014, editor) Understanding Space, Time and Causality: Philosophical, Biological and Physical Reflections (2019), and Remembering Einstein (2010).

He was born in Nanjangud, a temple town in Karnataka and passed away in Bengaluru, aged 94.