Deepak Dhar is an Indian theoretical physicist known for his research in statistical physics and stochastic processes. In 2022, he became the first Indian scientist to be awarded the Boltzmann Medal, the highest honor in statistical physics, awarded every three years by IUPAP in recognition of outstanding contributions to the discipline.
Wiki/Biography
Deepak Dhar was born on Tuesday, October 30, 1951, in Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh (age 71 in 2022). His zodiac sign is Scorpio. He graduated in Science from Allahabad University in 1970. He was a National Science Talent Search (NSTS) scholar when he joined Allahabad University. In 1972, he pursued a master’s degree in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. In 1978, he moved to the United States to pursue a PhD under the supervision of Jon Matthews at the California Institute of Technology. He was inspired by Reif’s textbooks and attracted by the logical structure of physics. His interest in science began when his father often brought home popular science books for him to read. When he was in college, his NSTS advisor Vipin Kumar Agrawal used to encourage him to read science books other than textbooks. He had participated in a “summer camp” for NSTS scholars. In the past, famous scientists and professors would hold lectures here. When he joined IIT Kanpur, he met classmates who were interested in pursuing an academic career. He said in an interview that the environment of Indian Institute of Technology is different from Allahabad, and everyone is interested in Indian administrative services. When he was a student at the Indian Institute of Technology, he had the opportunity to interact with lecturers such as HS Mani, DC Khan and Kalyan Banerji. After going to the United States for further studies, he was picked up by a local landlord arranged by the California Institute of Technology’s Student Welfare Office, because freshmen had to stay with the local landlord for two or three days. In interviews, he said he was troubled by the American accents of his professors. As a college student, he enjoyed solving simple math problems he saw in magazines. His entertaining math problems were published in the magazine’s Sunday supplement.
Deepak Dal as a young man
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′5″
Hair color: gray (semi-bald)
Eye color: black
family
Parents and siblings
His father’s name is Murli Dhar and mother’s name is Rama Gupta.
wife and children
Dar marries Manju. They have two children.
Profession
After pursuing his PhD, he returned to India and began his career as a researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). In 1980, after two years of research, he became a full-time researcher and worked there until 1986. Promoted to reader in 1986. Before his retirement, he held various positions at TIFR such as Associate Professor (1991) and Professor G to J (1995-2008). From 1984 to 1985, he spent a year’s sabbatical at the University of Paris as a visiting scientist. In May 2006, he served as a Rothschild Professor at the Isaac Newton Institute for a month. He is also a Distinguished Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. He studies the statistical mechanics and dynamics of random lattices, and his work understands statistical physics and stochastic processes. He introduced the concept of spectral dimension to the study of fractals and worked to develop a method for determining their critical phenomena using real-space renormalization group techniques, the first time mathematical tools were used to calculate non-trivial critical exponents of fractals. He collaborated with Ramakrishna Ramaswamy to develop a new model, the Dhar-Ramaswamy model, to address the Abelian sandpile model of self-organized criticality. He proposed the evolutionary operator, which was later studied by other researchers as the Dhar directed site animal enumeration problem by using the Bethe ansatz method to solve the directed site animal enumeration problem. He also demonstrated the advantage of slow flipping of isolated unfrustrated clusters in the autocorrelation function and proposed a model of metastable glass states in stochastic evolution. Some 113 of his studies are documented in articles in the Indian Academy of Sciences’ online article repository. He has been associate editor of the Springer publication “Journal of Statistical Physics” since 2005 and served as a member of the editorial board from 1993 to 1996 and 1999 to 2002. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Physics (IJPAP), National Institute of Scientific Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR). He is a former editorial advisor to the Elsevier science journal Physica A and has served on the editorial boards of journals such as Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, Physical Review E and Pramana. From 1992 to 1995, he served as a member of the Statistical Physics Committee of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and a member of the Program Committee of the International Center for Theoretical Sciences. On October 19, 2016, he delivered an invited lecture and special lecture entitled “The Wonderful Relationship between Physics and Mathematics” at the University of Mumbai.
scholarship
While pursuing his PhD at Caltech, he received the EP Anthony Fellowship (1972-73) and the RP Feynman Fellowship (1974-76). In 1990, he was elected as an academician of the Indian Academy of Sciences. In 1995, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences of India. In 1999, he was elected as an academician of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2006, he was elected as an academician of the World Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he was selected for the Science and Engineering Research Council’s J.C. Bose National Fellowship.
Awards, Honors, Achievements
- 1983: Indian National Academy of Sciences Young Scientist Medal
- 1991: Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research
- 1993: International Center for Theoretical Physics J. Robert Schrieffer Award
- 2001: National Academy of Sciences of India awards Satyendranath Bose Medal
- 2002: World Academy of Sciences Third World Academy of Sciences Award
- 2023: Padmasambhava
Deepak Dhar wins Padma Shri Award
Facts/Trivia
- He was elected as a fellow of the three major scientific academies of India – the Indian Academy of Science, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences of India. Currently, he is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.
- In 2022, he became the first Indian to win the Boltzmann Medal. The award is shared by John Hopfield.
- After completing his studies, he studied 3D solid melting models but later realized that the model was not applicable.
- While he was at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, he discovered a fellow scientist and friend Professor Mustansir Barma, with whom he published several papers. He didn’t have any mentors there, but his colleagues helped him lead his own research.
- He has worked at TIFR for forty years and has witnessed many changes. He said in an interview that the amount of money spent on science is greater now than it was 40 years ago. He further added that people are reading much less and writing much these days, which he believes is not always a good thing.
- In 1990, he solved the sandpile model proposed in a 1987 paper by three physicists, Per Bak, Chao Tang, and Kurt Wiesenfeld.
- While working at TIFR, Dhar was able to break down complex concepts into very simple terms. He is known for training and influencing a large number of students and colleagues to pursue a style of theoretical statistical physics.
- One of his colleagues said in an interview that his desk was always a mess. She further added that only he could find the files on his desk. His wife often came to the office to rearrange the desk, but after a while the desk would become a mess.
- When he was a professor, he often used decimals when grading. He would give 8.2 or 8.53 instead of 8.
- Many of the students he taught started working at ICTS (International Center for Theoretical Sciences, Bangalore). His students became some of the best researchers in theoretical physics.
- In an interview, when asked about the impact of the Indian education system at the school level, he said:
Yes, I experienced this firsthand as a child, and later when my daughter was in school. In fact, in our schools, we don’t seem to let students think and grow independently. Even practical training such as essay writing, which is supposed to cultivate the ability to express thoughts in language, has turned into a mindless “cow” essay: Cows are domestic animals. It has two eyes, four legs,…”. If a student says something slightly different, he/she is often punished (grades are slashed). I did find a few different teachers, but the vast majority were not ”
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education