How ICTP Shaped My Scientific Career in India

How ICTP Shaped My Scientific Career in India

Hardev Singh Virk

Senior Associate ICTP (1988-93)

Formerly Head, Physics Department &

Director, Earthquake Research Centre

Guru Nanak Dev University

Amritsar, India

Mailing Address:

# 360, Sector 71, SAS Nagar (Mohali), India – 160071

E-mail: hardevsingh.virk@gmail.com

            My schooling started in 1947, after India gained her freedom, in a rural one-teacher primary school with hardly any infrastructure. Learning was by rote and I mastered all the texts. I topped in Government High School Malerkotla (1957) and opted to study science (non-medical group) on the advice of my Headmaster. My interest and faith in science grew after reading a popular science book “The Universe and Dr. Einstein” by Lincoln Barnett, priced at Rupee 1(2 cents), awarded to me for scoring second position in First Year of College Physics. I was so fascinated by the Theory of Relativity and Cosmology that Einstein became my role model in life. After my Master degree (M.Sc.) in Physics from Aligarh Muslim University in India (1963), my interest shifted to the study of Elementary Particles. When I started teaching in Punjabi University Patiala, my favourite subjects were Theory of Relativity and Particle Physics. I could motivate my undergraduate students by narrating episodes from the lives of great physicists like Albert Einstein, Marie Curie and Abdus Salam. The latter belonged to my own province of Punjab in united India.

            My research career started in 1970 when I was selected as a ‘Boursier’ (Scholar) of the French Government to pursue my doctoral research in Marie Curie University of Paris under Professor Max Morand in Particle Physics. Our group was working on nuclear emulsions exposed to proton beams at CERN (Geneva) and Fermi lab at Batavia. My passion to find a new particle or a resonance in high-energy nuclear interactions was so great that I started working round the clock in my laboratory. For two years, I worked in perfect isolation and got frustrated in my research pursuits. A visit to Rutherford Laboratory in Cambridge in April 1972 brought me on the right track and I submitted my doctoral thesis rejecting the hypothesis of L-meson put forward by my own supervisor, Tsai Chu. My research career has been quite eventful but I bade good-bye to Particle Physics after failing to discover a new particle proposed by my own supervisor.

            During the seventies, India had no high-energy accelerators. I was given the choice to work under Indo-French collaboration at CERN but my family wanted me to return home. During my stay of more than two years in Paris I could not visit my family and was feeling homesick. Moreover, I wanted to serve India despite obvious handicaps in experimental research in my area of interest.

            ICTP came to my rescue in shaping my scientific career in India. It is no less than a miracle that a physicist returning from Paris was saved from utter frustration by the intervention of the ICTP. During 1977, Professor A.H. Cook of Cambridge University conducted the first ten-week course on Physics of Earth at ICTP and I was lucky to join it. It gave me an opportunity to visit some laboratories in Europe. In those days ICTP funded such visits and the choice was given to the participant. I also made a friendship with Professor Abdus Salam, which lasted till his death. We met frequently and discussed the problems of scientists from the developing countries. I advised him to start more courses of the applied nature, e.g., medical physics, soil physics, geophysics, and microelectronics, to which he agreed in principle but he had reservations about setting up laboratories at the ICTP. During the eighties ICTP took the initiative to start Applied Physics programmes with the collaboration of the University of Trieste. I may claim some credit for changing the character of ICTP from a purely theoretical centre of physics to a wholesome physics institute. As a consequence, ICTP underwent a sea change, creating infrastructure at both the physical and academic levels. This rapid expansion put a lot of strain on the resources of ICTP, its staff and its Director. ICTP became more and more bureaucratic in its approach and the cordial personal relationship between the staff and course participants became a legacy of the past.

            After my training at the ICTP, I ventured into new fields of research in Earth Sciences, namely, Geochronology, Exploration Geophysics, Earthquake Prediction studies. Professor Abdus Salam visited my laboratory in 1981 and was surprised to see a Particle physicist transformed into a Geophysicist. I also attended courses in Medical Physics at ICTP and on return to India set up the Radiation Physics laboratory in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. Using the heavy ion beam facility (UNILAC) at GSI, Darmstadt, I engaged myself in the study of radiation effects in mineral crystals, glasses and polymers. Ion Track Filters were developed and used in medicine and environment and our laboratory became a pioneer in earthquake prediction research and Ion Track Technology in India.

            Our collaboration resulted in many diverse activities when our Physics Department was affiliated to ICTP for almost a decade. A Centre for the Promotion of Science was set up under my supervision for popularisation of science in Punjab; research grants were received from ICTP in a project mode; the book Ideals and Realities by Abdus Salam was translated by me into Punjabi and I had the honour to work as a Senior Associate of ICTP (1988-93). ICTP proved to be a launching pad for my research activity in India, culminating in the publication of 360 research papers, 125 popular science articles and 30 books during my scientific career. To keep alive the spirit of ICTP, since my retirement in June 2002, I have been engaged in the promotion of Physics Education in India as President of the Indian Association of Physics Teachers (IAPT). I am also engaged in nanotechnology research as my pastime.

            Let me quote the last paragraph from the obituary note I published in Current Science (Vol. 72, No. 11, June 10, 1997), after the sad demise of my esteemed friend, guide and philosopher: “If ICTP in Trieste has become a Mecca for Third World scientists over the years since its creation in 1964, Professor Abdus Salam, its Director, was destined to play the role of a prophet of Third World scientists. May the mercy of Allah be on His servant?”