Partha Ghose (born 1939) is an Indian
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
, author, philosopher, musician and former professor at the
S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences in
Kolkata
Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...
. He is the former chairman of
Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute
Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) is a film and television institute located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Named after renowned Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray, the institute provides higher and professional education and tech ...
, Kolkata and a member of the board of trustees of the
Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata.
Life and works
Partha Ghose is one of India's best known
popularizers of modern science. He has written influential papers and books
[P. Ghose, Testing Quantum Mechanics on New Ground, Cambridge University Press, UK, April 1999."] on physics as well as popular books on science.
[P. Ghose and D. Home, Riddles in Your Tea Cup, Rupa & Co., 1990, Adam Hilger, UK, Sept 1994. The book has been published in several Indian languages, Italian, Japanese and Turkish.][P. Ghose, ''Solar Eclipse : The Celestial Diamond'', Harper-Collins of India, 1996.] He was an anchorperson in the popular Indian TV shows Quest and Eureka. He has directed plays and appeared in media programmes and films including the National Award-winning film 'The Quantum Indians', which is about great Indian scientists
Satyendranath Bose,
C. V. Raman and
Meghnad Saha
Meghnad Saha (6 October 1893 – 16 February 1956) was an Indian astrophysicist and politician who helped devise the theory of Thermal ionization, thermal ionisation. His Saha ionization equation, Saha ionisation equation allowed astronomers to ...
.
Ghose received the National Award for the Best Science and Technology coverage in the Mass Media of the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) for the period 1986–1990. He was also awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize for the popularization of science by the
Indian National Science Academy
The Indian National Science Academy (INSA) is a national academy in New Delhi
New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three b ...
.
He is best known in the physics world for his significant contributions to theoretical physics, particularly the foundations of
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...
.
(i) His paper in collaboration with
D. Home and
G. S. Agarwal[P. Ghose, D. Home and G. S. Agarwal, 'An Experiment to Throw More Light on Light', Physics Letters. A vol. 153, 403–406 (1991).] (the GHA experiment) in unraveling the nature of
wave–particle duality
Wave–particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that fundamental entities of the universe, like photons and electrons, exhibit particle or wave (physics), wave properties according to the experimental circumstances. It expresses the in ...
in single-photon experiments led to its experimental verification by Y. Mizobuchi and Y. Ohtake
[Y. Mizobuchi & Y. Ohtake, 'An "experiment to throw more light on light"', Physics Letters A, vol. 168, pp. 1–5 (1992).] in Japan and later by M. Genovese and collaborators
[G. Brida, M. Genovese, M. Gramegna and E. Predazi, ‘A conclusive experiment to throw more light on "light" ’, Physics Letters A, vol. 328, pp. 313–318 (2004).] in Italy. This work has been widely referred to and has found place even in popular texts.,
[G. Venkataraman, Quantum Revolution: What is Reality, Vignettes in Physics, Sangam Books, 1994.][John Gribbin, Schrődinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality, Phoenix Paperback, 1996.]
(ii) His work on Bohmian trajectories of photons
[P. Ghose, A. S. Majumdar, S. Guha and J. Sau, ‘Bohmian trajectories for photons’, Physics. Letters A vol. 290, pp. 205-213 (2001).] formed the basis for a comparison of these trajectories from those that were later observed experimentally with weak measurements.
[Sacha Kocsis, Sylvain Ravets, Boris Braverman, Kris-ter Shalm, Aephraim M. Steinberg: ‘Observing the trajectories of a single photon using weak measurement’, Science 3, June 2011, vol. 332 no. 6034, pp. 1170–1173, (abstract)]
(iii) He has also made a pioneering contribution by showing that 'entanglement' can occur in classical polarization optics resulting in violations of Bell-like inequalities hitherto believed to be exclusive to quantum systems.
[P. Ghose and M. K. Samal, ‘EPR Type Nonlocality in Classical Electrodynamics!’, arXiv: uant-ph0111119, 22 November 2001.] This has led to many investigations and experiments confirming such violations
[P. Ghose and A. Mukherjee, ‘Entanglement in Classical Optics’, Reviews in Theoretical Science vol. 2, pp. 1-14 (2014).] and consequently to a shifting of the boundary between quantum and classical physics.
[Xiao-Feng Qian, Bethany Little, John C. Howell, and J.H. Eberly, ‘Shifting the Quantum-Classical Boundary: Theory and Experiment for Statistically Classical Optical Fields’, arXiv: 1506.01305 uant-ph25 June 2015.]
Ghose's exposition of
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...
’s philosophy and music has found expression in several scholarly papers. He served as the Hon. Secretary of the
Visva-Bharati Music Board for a few years.
He also served as a member of the Working Group on National Language Policy, Knowledge Commission, Govt of India.
Awards
*
ABP Ananda Sera Bangali Award: 2022
References
;Books edited
* "Solitons and Nonlinear Systems", Proc. of the Seminar-cum-Workshop on Solitons and Nonlinear Systems, Calcutta, eds. D. K. Sinha and P. Ghose, South Asia Publishers, New Delhi, 1986.
* "Particle Phenomenology in the 1990s", Proc. of the Second International Workshop in High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP II), Calcutta, Jan. 1991, eds. A. Datta, P. Ghose and A. Raychaudhuri, World Scientific, Singapore, 1992.
* "CP Violation: 25 Years Since its Discovery", Proc. of a Topical Meeting to Celebrate 25 Years of the Discovery of CP Violation, Calcutta, Jan. 1990, eds. A. Datta, P. Ghose and A. Raychaudhuri, Wiley Eastern.
* "S. N. Bose : The Man and his Work" (Parts I & II) (eds. C. K. Majumder, P. Ghose, E. Chatterjee, S. Chatterjee & S. Bandyopadhyay), SNBNCBS, Calcutta, 1994.
* "Particle Physics & Cosmology at the Interface", BCSPIN-IOP-SNBNCBS Winter School Lecture Notes - Vol I, eds. J. C. Pati, P. Ghose & J. Maharana World Scientific, Singapore, 1995.
* "Highlights of Particle Phenomenology", Proc. of the Fourth Workshop in High Energy Physics Phenomenology (WHEPP IV), eds. A. Datta, P. Ghose and A. Raychaudhuri, Allied Publishers Ltd., 1997.
* "Materialism and Immaterialism in India and the West: Varying Vistas", PHISPC Vol XII, Part 5, Centre for Studies in Civilizations, New Delhi, 2010 (903 pages).
* "The Poet and the Scientist", a comprehensive account of the correspondence and dialogues between Rabindranath Tagore and Albert Einstein, their background and impact, Visva-Bharati, 2014.
* "Einstein, Tagore and the Nature of Reality", Routledge, London 2017.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghose, Partha
1939 births
Living people
20th-century Indian physicists
University of Calcutta alumni
Academic staff of the University of Calcutta
Indian technology writers
Indian social sciences writers
Indian popular science writers
Scientists from Kolkata