{"id":46879,"date":"2025-05-21T14:41:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T09:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=46879"},"modified":"2025-05-21T17:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T11:39:22","slug":"jayant-narlikar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/jayant-narlikar\/","title":{"rendered":"Jayant Narlikar"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Jayant Narlikar Latest News<\/h2>\n<p>Eminent astrophysicist, science communicator, and Padma Vibhushan awardee Dr. Jayant Vishnu Narlikar passed away in Pune recently.<\/p>\n<h2>About Jayant Narlikar<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>He is one of India\u2019s most\u00a0<strong>distinguished astrophysicists<\/strong>\u00a0and a global name\u00a0<strong>in theoretical cosmology.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>He was born on July 19, 1938, in Kolhapur,\u00a0<strong>Maharashtra<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>He earned his B.Sc degree from the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in 1957.<\/li>\n<li>He later went on to<strong>\u00a0Cambridge University for higher studies<\/strong>, becoming a Wrangler and earning the\u00a0<strong>Tyson Medal in the Mathematical Tripos<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 a mark of top academic distinction.<\/li>\n<li>After returning to India, Narlikar\u00a0<strong>joined the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR)\u00a0<\/strong>in 1972 and\u00a0<strong>led the Theoretical Astrophysics Group until 1989,<\/strong>\u00a0during which time the\u00a0<strong>group gained international recognition.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>In 1988, the University Grants Commission (UGC) entrusted him with the task of\u00a0<strong>establishing the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)<\/strong>\u00a0inside the Savitribai Phule Pune University campus. As its\u00a0<strong>founding director,<\/strong>\u00a0he led IUCAA until his retirement in 2003.<\/li>\n<li>He served as\u00a0<strong>President of the Cosmology Commission of the International Astronomical Union<\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0<strong>1994 to 1997.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>He is best known for co-developing the\u00a0<strong>Hoyle\u2013Narlikar theory of gravity.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>From 1999 to 2003, he\u00a0<strong>led a space research experiment to collect microorganisms<\/strong>\u00a0from the upper atmosphere (up to 41 km).\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>He\u00a0<strong>authored numerous popular science books<\/strong>\u00a0and articles, and appeared frequently on radio and television to explain complex scientific ideas in simple terms.<\/li>\n<li>In 1996,\u00a0<strong>UNESCO<\/strong>\u00a0honoured him with the\u00a0<strong>Kalinga Award for science popularisation.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>In 2004,<\/strong>\u00a0he received the\u00a0<strong>Padma Vibhushan<\/strong>, India&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>second-highest civilian award.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>\u00a0In 2014, the Sahitya Akademi honoured his Marathi autobiography with its highest prize for regional literature.<\/li>\n<li>He was a\u00a0<strong>Fellow of all three national science academies of India,<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0<strong>Royal Astronomical Society of London<\/strong>, and the\u00a0<strong>Third World Academy of Sciences.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Hoyle-Narlikar Theory of Gravity<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Jayant Narlikar is best known for co-developing the Hoyle\u2013Narlikar theory of gravity\u2014an\u00a0<strong>alternative to Einstein\u2019s general relativity<\/strong>\u2014and for\u00a0<strong>championing the steady-state theory of the universe,<\/strong>\u00a0a bold\u00a0<strong>counterpoint to\u00a0<\/strong>the widely accepted\u00a0<strong>Big Bang model.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The Hoyle\u2013Narlikar theory offered a formulation of gravitation that s<strong>ynthesised Einstein\u2019s general relativity with Mach\u2019s principle,<\/strong>\u00a0proposing that the inertial mass of a particle depends on the distribution of mass across the universe\u2014an idea that challenged conventional big bang cosmology and continues to stimulate scientific debate.<\/li>\n<li>The theory\u00a0<strong>produced evidence to support<\/strong>\u00a0what is known as the\u00a0<strong>steady-state theory of the universe.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Unlike the Big Bang theory that suggests a definite beginning, and possibly an end, to the universe, the\u00a0<strong>steady-state theory maintains that the universe<\/strong>\u00a0has\u00a0<strong>always been, and would continue to be, the way it is<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0<strong>infinite in extent, without a beginning or an end.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It\u00a0<strong>acknowledged an expanding universe,<\/strong>\u00a0which was experimentally verifiable,\u00a0<strong>but proposed that the universe<\/strong>\u00a0was able to\u00a0<strong>maintain a constant density by continuously creating new matter.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The theory was\u00a0<strong>first put forward in 1948 by British scientists Sir Hermann Bondi, Thomas Gold, and Sir Fred Hoyle.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>It was\u00a0<strong>further developed by Hoyle\u00a0<\/strong>to deal with problems that had arisen in connection with the alternative big-bang hypothesis.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Jayant Narlikar FAQs<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q1:<\/strong>\u00a0Jayant Narlikar is best known for co-developing which theory?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Hoyle\u2013Narlikar Theory of Gravity<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q2:<\/strong>\u00a0What is the name of the research institution Jayant Narlikar helped found in Pune?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q3:<\/strong>\u00a0Which Indian civilian award was conferred on Jayant Narlikar in 2004?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ans:<\/strong>\u00a0Padma Vibhushan<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/sci-tech\/science\/noted-astrophysicist-jayant-narlikar-passes-away-at-87\/article69596360.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">TH<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jayant Narlikar, a leading Indian astrophysicist, is globally renowned for his contributions to theoretical cosmology and scientific research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":46885,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[339,21,22,335],"class_list":{"0":"post-46879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-jayant-narlikar","9":"tag-prelims-pointers","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affiars","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}