Indian scientist Ashoke Sen bags top physics honour

Ashy an unassuming Indian scientist in Allahabad has won the world’s biggest prize in physics . Ashoke Sen, a professor at the little known but exclusive Harish-Chandra Research Institute , Allahabad , was on Tuesday declared one of the winners of the first Fundamental Physics prize started by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner.

Sen and eight other scientists will get $3 million each — double of what is given with the Nobel prize. Seven of the winners are based in the United States, one in France and one in India. Sen has been awarded for his pioneering work on string theory.

Typically, Ashoke Sen deflected attention away from himself and pointed at others in the field in India. “You just see — there are going to be many more awards in the future for Indians,” he told TOI from Allahabad.
Yuri Milner made billions from investments in various internet-based companies after giving up his job as researcher at Moscow’s Lebedev Physical Institute. He personally selected the winners of this year’s award but in future the work would be done by a panel, he told media.

Sen has not yet digested the news. “I have no idea what I will do with $3 million,” he exclaimed. Sen is considered one of the original contributors to string theory, a complex mathematical construct which is meant to resolve one of science’s biggest mysteries —that gravity as explained by Einstein does not fit in with quantum theory.

Scientists in India, especially string theory practitioners in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata were overjoyed. Sunil Mukhi, chair of theoretical physics at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, said, “It should be noted that he is the only Indian among the nine awardees. That shows his world stature, and India’s too,” he added.

Sen studied in Shailendra Sircar Vidyalaya, and then Presidency College, in Kolkata before going to IIT Kanpur in 1976. He got his doctorate from State University of New York, Stonybrook and then worked at Fermilab and Stanford before returning to India.