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The 2018 prize, priced at $ 10,000, is expected to be announced on October 23. He quotes: "For his many contributions to general relativity, including black hole theory, canonical quantum gravity and quantum cosmology."
Ashtekar is professor of physics, Professor Evan Pugh, incumbent, chairman of Eberly and director of the gravitational and cosmos institute of Pennsylvania State University.
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"The award is special because it is the highest distinction awarded by APS in the broad field of gravitational sciences.The Einstein First Prize was awarded jointly to Peter Bergmann and John Wheeler, who introduced General Relativity in American universities by creating research groups, the first prize often sets the tone, the following prizes rewarded the "achievements of a lifetime." So the news was deeply satisfying, "Ashtekar told IANS in a statement. interview by email.
Ashtekar's passion for the physical sciences began while he was in high school in India. "At first I only knew Marathi literature – it's my mother tongue and I was the instructor until I was 11 years old. Then Hindi and English literature was exposed and we realized how closely the literature is related to specific cultures. One language or context may be mediocre in another. At the same time, I learned Newton's laws and the universality of gravity – so that the apple falls on the earth also makes the planets revolve around the sun. I said.
What he found most remarkable is that, unlike art and literature, which are "so closely related to human conditions," Newton's laws transcend both. "It was striking to me that Newton's same laws were taught and admired in India as in China, Japan and the West."
"Later, in college, fundamental physics seemed to me to be the deepest and purest way to seek the understanding of Nature (the outside world)." At graduate level, I chose to working in general relativity, cosmology and quantum physics, the most fundamental questions about the space, time and nature of the physical universe are discussed, "he said.
Somewhere along the line, he also acknowledged that although one of the four main forces of nature, gravity is the weakest, yet it is so crucial to the way the universe it's formed and exists.
"Gravity has two main characteristics that other forces do not share: unlike weak and strong forces, it is long-range and therefore essential for large-scale structures and phenomena.Electromagnetic force is also long-range. electric with both signs, the force can be both attractive and repulsive.
"The big bodies like the sun and the planets are all electrically neutral and they do not exert any electromagnetic force, so the dominant force between these bodies is gravitational," he said.
After receiving his doctorate In 1974, Ashtekar held various influential positions in France, Canada and India at the University of Chicago. His biography on the National Academy of Sciences, to which he was elected a member in 2016, describes him as "best known for launching the Loop Quantum Gravity program by introducing new variables to simplify the equations. Einstein, to analyze the very ancient universe with the help of Loop Quantum Cosmology, and for his contributions to the study of the asymptotic structure of spatio-temporal and gravitational waves in general nonlinear relativity ".
After such a long career in various disciplines of physics, he said that science is currently in "the golden age of gravity". "Until the mid-1960s, general relativity remained isolated from traditional science – a virgin and beautiful theory to admire from afar.
"The paradigm has changed completely and relativistic gravity has become the center of physics and astronomy, and thanks to the big bang, black holes and gravitational waves, we have realized that the universe It is not a quiet and peaceful place in which astronomers believed it was a good part of the 20th century, "he said.
"There are very energetic high-energy explosions that have shaped the history of our universe, so relativistic gravity has completely upset our understanding of the cosmos," he said.
"The deepest riddles of fundamental physics today are at the interface of general relativity and quantum physics, what has really happened to the big bang? end point of the quantum evaporation of black holes? How to incorporate gravity into the unified theories of It is therefore clear that gravity will continue to dominate physics and astronomy research in the coming decades ", he declares.
Ashtekar said, "Extremely talented physicists in India are making a major contribution to pure physics in areas I know very closely, and I am particularly pleased with the" The LIGO-India project places India at the top of the list. rank of international efforts, including the Interuniversity Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics of Pune, which will play an important role in the major discoveries that will be made with the international network. of observatories of gravitational waves in 5 to 10 years. In this area, India is ahead of China, for example. "
"On the other hand, my colleagues from other fields of physics tell me that this is not the case in their field, that there is a lot of good research but not enough" big "researches which are published in the most visible journals, "he said.
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