GUWAHATI, April 18 - The Physics Academy of North-East (PANE) celebrated its foundation day at IIT Guwahati with a daylong programme recently.
Prof Bipul Bhuyan, general secretary PANE, mentioned various programmes to be undertaken by PANE both in the near-term and long-term future.
PANE president Prof Dilip Kumar Choudhury spoke on the history of PANE since its birth at IIT Guwahati in 1998. This was followed by brief speeches by Prof Dhruba J Saikia, executive president of PANE and Prof P Poulose, HoD of physics department of IIT Guwahati.
Prof Gautam Biswas, Director of IIT Guwahati, referred to IIT Guwahati�s role in the dissemination of scientific awareness in the recent years and assured PANE of its full support in all of its future creative activities. Prof Biswas also felicitated Prof Spenta Wadia, Emeritus Professor of Physics and founding director of International Centre for Theoretical Sciences (ICTS-TIFR), Bangalore, and also the keynote speaker of the foundation day celebration.
Prof DN Buragohain, founding director of IIT, Guwahati was also felicitated for his contribution to PANE in its formative stages. Prof Buragohain, along with Prof KM Pathak, former Vice Chancellor of Tezpur University and a few other distinguished physicists played a pivotal role in giving birth to PANE in 1998 at IIT Guwahati with a commitment to provide a common platform to the physics community of the North East for collaborative research and dissemination of scientific knowledge through discussions, workshops and conferences.
The foundation day lecture was delivered by Prof Wadia on the topic �Quantum Mechanics and the Hidden Structures of Space-time�.
Prof Wadia, an internationally-acclaimed theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions in high energy physics, string theory and quantum field theory, explained the chronological development of the ideas of space-time from Newton to Einstein. He also discussed the philosophical motivation of Einstein�s General Theory of Relativity and its significance.
He also put forward the idea of the string theory as a framework for a quantum theory of gravity. He said that this was a new paradigm in theoretical physics that goes beyond relativistic quantum field theory. He also pointed out how gravitational waves could propagate through the fabric of space-time when a pair of super-massive black holes collided violently with each other, located about 1.3 billion light years away from Earth.
There were also several talks delivered by well-known speakers including Prof Dhruba J Saikia, Vice Chancellor of Cotton College State University; Prof MP Bora and Prof Kalyanee Baruah from the Department of Physics of Gauhati University and Prof Saurabh Basu, Prof Amarendra Sarma and Prof Subhaditya Bhattacharya from the Department of Physics, IIT Guwahati.
A large number of enthusiastic PANE life members from different parts of the North East, distinguished dignitaries, faculty members, research scholars and students from various institutions including IIT Guwahati and Gauhati University were present on the occasion.
