My Mentors
`World`s foremost theoretical electrochemist` Professor Sarukkai Krishnamachary Rangarajan (1932-2008) |
`modern
day Isaac Newton` Professor Pierre-Gilles De Gennes (1932-2007) |
A Tribute: `Prof. Rangarajan, undisputedly the world`s foremost theoretical
electrochemist.` R. De Levie (1993) Descriptions like
brilliant, inspiring, humane, dedicated, though apt, are not adequate to
portray Professor S. K. Rangarajan- either as a person or as a Scientist.
Clarity in thought, ability to discern the essential from the details, urge
to comprehend, correlate, unify and generalize are transparent in all his
activities. In the area of electrochemical sciences, the main thrust of his
approach is to bring electrochemistry back into mainstream of physical
chemistry and chemical physics where it really belongs. “I have rarely come across an intellectual and human being who is so
open and deep. It is an irreparable loss to the community.” -Debashis Mukherjee (2008) “A truly great teacher, SKR was a selfless and self-effacing
man. He gave away his knowledge to
anyone who came to him without ever expecting any return. The very thought of returns never occurred
to him. He was not a man of mere
intellect. Indeed, it was jut one
small part of him. At a time when lesser mortals get easily tempted to fall
prey to the ways of the world, he remained steadfast in his values and
principles, never once deviating from his chosen, or should I say preordained
path”. - S. Arunachalam |
Awarded the Nobel
Prize in Physics (1991) "for discovering that methods developed for
studying order phenomena in simple systems can be generalized to more complex
forms of matter, in particular to liquid crystals and polymers." Biography:
P. G. de Gennes was
born in |
Honours and Awards: Homi Bhabha Fellow
(1970-72). Fellow, Fellow,
Indian National Science Academy. S. R. Palit Award in
Physical Chemistry. Corresponding Fellow,
Third World Academy of Sciences, Italy. CRSI Life Time
Achievement Award (2008) Associate Editor of
Electrochimica Acta (Pergamon Press). …but the man was
much more than what these signify. Two “rare
distinctions”: Never bothered to
obtain a Ph.D. though produced seven Doctorates … and most of them decorated
with best thesis awards at IISc. For a major part of his career, he neither
had a big team at his command nor funded projects at his disposal. Some interesting anecdotes
and quotes: How The Legend goes that Doss was looking for someone who knew Laplace
Transforms and could solve non-stedy-state problem for the redoxo-kinetic
effect. A popular article on Laplace transforms contributed by SKR to his Professor Martin Fleishman on SKR’s 1965 visit to the University of “Look, Rangarajan,
this University is a great place and we have had many visiting us. They all
got something from here. You are the only person to whom we didn’t give
anything but took everything.” SKR learns his first lesson in ‘Administration’ from Doss… On one of his
scientific sessions with Doss, SKR had taken with him a file ‘for Director’s
approval’; Doss said, ‘You may send the file later, let us discuss science
now’. Doss in one of his meetings, seems to have remarked that “discovering
SKR” was his most important contribution to electrochemistry. Publications
of Prof. S. K. Rangarajan http://www.ise-online.org/portaits/Rangarajan.html An
Obituary on SKR |