Prof. R. Srinivasan in conversation with Prof. M.S. Ramachandra Rao
Welcome to the oral history interview
organized by the Heritage Centre of IIT Madras.
I am M. S. Ramachandra Rao from the Department of Physics.
I am extremely happy, and also I feel privileged to interview
a living legend Professor R. Srinivasan;
Ramaswamy Srinivasan whom we all dearly call as Professor R.S.
Professor R. S. served IIT Madras from
1962 to 1990 for about 3 decades,
and during the time of his service, he graduated about
25 Ph.D. students and published about 250 research papers.
He…al…he was also the Dean of Academic Research,
Dean of Student Affairs and he also held the position of
Deputy Director of IIT Madras.
More than anything, Professor R. S. has been
an extraordinary teacher and a wonderful
and meticulous experimentalist.
In fact, he changed over from theory to experiment.
He was initially working on the Theory of Lattice Dynamics,
and then…he became…all in all a
true low temperature experimental physicist.
He was not only instrumental in IIT Madras
in establishing a state of the art low temperature facility,
first of its kind in the entire country.
This used to be a central facility for
low temperature measurements,
way back in the mid-80s, during the ITC boom.
Later, in the later part of his career,
he was asked to establish 3 national centres of
great importance, under the name
‘Inter-University Consortium’ in Bombay, Indore and Kolkata.
I mean, these centres are so important now for people
working in universities and…and…and to have access to
you know, high-end facilities for their research.
He is an epitome of…a great academician,
he is an embodiment of a great academician who should be
emulated by one and all.
At the age of 87, he is 2 years older than my father,
he still sits and you know, plays with physics instruments.
His mission is to fabricate low cost physics equipment
and he has succeeded in that endeavour in a very big way.
He’s been training teachers by way of refresher courses...
About 2000 teachers were trained by him, and he had
conducted 85 refresher courses, and we are going to
hear all about it from him very soon.
He is defined as a…a…a…a true karma yogi.
We are happy to have you here, sir.
Thank you for coming over for this interview.
And I also would like to welcome Mrs. Radha Srinivasan
who these days prefers to travel along with him
wherever he goes and also Professor Swamy
and my colleague Professor V. Sankaranarayanan
from Low Temperatures Physics Lab.
So, Professor R. S., I would like to ask you to tell us about
your schooling and college days before joining IIT Madras.
Yeah, see my schooling from first form to fifth
form was mostly done in Andhra Pradesh because
my father was a PWD engineer in the pre-independence
days Madras Presidency.
He was transferred from place to place.
So I did first form to fifth form in Proddatur in Kadapa District,
Madanapalle and Bellary.
And then I did sixth form in Ramakrishna School
in Chennai, and did my intermediate in Loyola College,
and my B.Sc. honours in Madras Christian College in Tambaram.
Then, I joined the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
in 1951 for my Ph.D.
And in those days, IISC was not giving degrees,
so we had to register with our parent universities,
in my case Madras University.
I got my Ph.D. in 1957,
then continued as a postdoctoral fellow till ‘62 in IISc Bangalore.
‘62 I joined IIT Madras.
And can you tell us your experience at IIT Madras
and about the Physics Department.
I think Physics Department just then started, with
Professor Ramaswamy heading
the department, and about your colleagues.
Yeah…see when I joined in 1962,
the Physics Department was already established by Professor C. Ramasastry.
He had appointed a few faculty members and
started the teaching programmes for the B.Tech. students.
But in those days, there was only one building;
the Building Sciences Building.
And all departments were housed there,
so lectures were conducted there.
About a year later… ‘63,
the Humanities Sciences Building came into
existence and we moved into the Humanities Sciences Building.
Professor Ramasastry also negotiated with the GTZ,
the German Technical Aid Organization for 8 to 7
laboratories in the Physics Department.
So the credit for starting the Physics Department
goes to Professor Ramasastry.
When I joined, there were already a few faculty members.
I think Professor Sobhanadri was there.
There was Dr. Ramanamurthi,
Dr. Sivaramakrishnan, S. B. S. Sastry,
Y. V. G. S. Murthi…these people were there.
Then, I was working in theory at that time,
and there was Dr. Ramji Rao who worked
with me on…for his Ph.D. on Lattice Dynamics.
Then during ‘65 to ‘67,
I went as a Visiting Research Associate to the
Material Science Laboratory in Penn State University
where I worked on theories of non-linear elastic constants,
third order elastic constants,
how to calculate them from
fundamental forces between the atoms.
So I published several papers there,
came back and continued this work till ‘71.
My colleagues in the Physics Department
were very good, and we had
excellent relations among the colleagues.
Professor V. Balakrishnan joined later,
but I have a very high regard for
Professor V. Balakrishnan because he is an exceptionally good
theoretical physicist and a very good teacher.
In fact, we were involved in modifying the
structure of Physics teaching for the B.Tech. students.
It was changed from 5 semesters to 3 semesters,
and Professor V. Balakrishnan made the curriculum
for three semesters and I taught with him…the B.Tech. students,
I also taught M.Sc. students.
I taught theory, all topics like Mathematical Physics,
Classical Mechanic, Statistical Mechanics, Quantum Mechanic,
Solid-state Physics to the M.Sc. students.
Then I started lectures and Cryogenics as an
elective, and we built the Low Temperature Lab.
This is how it happened.
Very nice, sir.
So, you have been working on a
Lattice Dynamics…Theory of Lattice Dynamics,
but then you changed over to Experimental
Low Temperature Physics, which is of course,
a very important area, and this has…
your venturing into that field in one way
has helped, you know, people like us
who work in Experimental Low Temperature.
See, actually for my Ph.D., I did experimental work
and Thermal Expansion down to 90k.
To explain the results, I had to learn theory.
So I read all theory papers and max bonds theory and Lattice Dynamic,
and then, we did a lot of work on Lattice Dynamics,
and one thing led to the other;
from Lattice Dynamics, I went to anharmonic property of crystals,
then non-linear elasticity and so on.
In 1971, the Low Temperature Laboratory was
started with German aid in the Physics Department.
And Professor A. Ramachandran who was
the Director at that time, he put me in charge of the
Low Temperature Lab, because he knew me back
from IISc days, and he knew
I had worked in Low Temperatures at that time.
But I had not worked in Liquid Helium.
Work at Liquid Helium is totally
different from work at Liquid Nitrogen.
And so I had to first learn how to operate and
maintain the helium plant,
because if the helium plant goes bad,
we have to wait for technicians to come from US,
and that may take several months or years.
So we had to see that we maintain the equipment,
so that the liquefier ran all the time.
And then I had to start experiments to train the
students in low temperatures and then start research.
But changeover was not difficult, because
I have…I am a self-made physicist because when
we studied B.Sc. honours, we were not taught much of
Mathematical Physics or Theoretical Physics.
So I had to learn all of this by myself.
But I found that if you read the papers or the books,
and read them 2-3 times, then you understand
you can do any type of Physics, whether
it is experimental or theoretical.
So this is how I started;
I changed from theory to experiment.
So would you…we…we would like to hear from you
more about Low Temperature Physics Lab,
how it was established, and about your students
Prof. R. Srinivasan: Yes. Prof. M. S. Ramachandra Rao: who worked on many topics including
High Temperature Superconductivity?
Yeah, you see, the Low Temperature Lab
was aided by the German government and
there was a professor from the German side
who interacted with me and this was
Professor Klipping who had a lot of experience in
international collaboration.
Professor Klipping realized, that though
I was a theoretical physicist,
I understood how to do Low Temperature experiment.
So he supported me very strongly.
When the Low Temperature Lab was established,
the German government gave us some minimum
equipment to do a few experiments,
but we didn’t have money to purchase
additional equipment like temperature controllers,
vacuum pumps, and so on.
Professor Ramachandran,
Director was kind enough to sanction 10,000 rupees per year
as grant for Low Temperatures,
but with this 10,000 rupees, I could import 6
cylinders of helium gas from UK.
I had no money for buying equipment.
Professor Klipping realized this, and he told me that
in their lab they are throwing off old
measuring equipment and replacing them by new ones
or they’re throwing off equipment which doesn’t work
because it was much cheaper to buy new equipment
in Germany than to repair old equipment.
He said he will send all this to me, and if
I can salvage some of the equipment and repair the
equipment I can use it in the development of my lab.
This is how we develop the Low Temperature Lab
in a very low cost way.
And I am always conscious that any development in
India must be low cost development because
there are many universities which don’t get
enough funds for their research purposes.
So we started like this.
I went twice to Germany for three months each time
to work in Professor Klipping’s lab,
but I understood Low Temperature Physics,
so started our own activities.
When we had problems, we repaired our
equipment ourselves, and we were…our low temperature
liquefiers were working all the times, whereas,
in other institutions in India, the breakdown time was large.
Well, my liquefier was the smallest liquefier in India;
2 litres of liquid helium with liquid nitrogen pre-cooling,
but it was working.
And TIFR wanted to send some equipment in a balloon
for astronomical purposes, and the
detector had to be cooled with liquid helium.
Their machine was not working,
so they asked me whether I could make 100 litres of
liquid helium and supply it to them.
To make 100 litres, I had to run my liquefier nonstop for four days.
But I told them, “You bring the gas, and you bring your helium container,
I will make the liquid helium and give it to you.”
And I and my colleague Venugopal we slept in the lab
for four nights because we didn’t know whether
there would be power interruptions which were
frequent in those times.
Luckily, the four days there was no power interruption.
We made the 100 litres liquid helium gave it to them.
And that is why the reputation of my lab grew.
People realized that here was one lab where the liquefiers
was working all the time and you can depend on
them to supply liquid helium.
Then I developed low temperature experiments.
I got projects and the DST made me Chairman of the
Programme Advisory Committee in cryogenic for 10 years,
to develop large scale cryogenic applications, engineering applications.
So we gave projects to IIT Bombay,
IISc Bangalore, IIT Kharagpur,
where there was an advanced cryogenic centre
to develop large scale cryogenic engineering equipment.
IIT Bombay made a Stirling cycle liquid nitrogen plant,
completely indigenously.
IIT…IISc made 100 litre liquid helium demand.
So like this, large scale cryogenics work came up,
but I want to say that our development of Low Temperature Laboratory
was closely bound with the Material Science Centre of IIT…IIT Madras.
I can talk about this if you want.
See, when we started doing research, Professor G. V. Subba Rao
was appointed Head of the Material Science Centre.
He was an exceptionally good material scientist.
Made very good materials.
And I developed very close collaboration with Professor G. V. Subba Rao.
So he made several phase, superconducting materials,
magnetic pyrochlore materials and
later high temperature superconducting materials,
very high quality materials which he will characterize
using X-ray diffraction and other facilities,
and then we take the materials and
do all low temperature measurements.
This collaboration was essential for the development of
research in the Low Temperature Lab.
And I am greatly beholden to
Professor G. V. Subba Rao for his help.
He and his students…Professor M. S. R. Rao was there at that time,
Varadaraju was there, and our Sankaranarayanan
did work and several face superconductors…
Vasudev Rao worked on
thermoelectric properties of these materials,
Ranganathan worked on magnetic properties of pyrochlore,
and several other of my students worked on
high temperature superconductors.
And this collaboration with
Materials Research Lab is continuing even today, after 40 years.
This is an example of how a very good collaboration between
two different departments could develop in IIT.
And I am greatly beholden…you must show the
photograph of Professor G. V. Subba Rao.
I learnt he passed away last year and I felt very sad.
He was a very good friend and very good collaborator for me.
Thank you, sir.
So it’s…it’s really good to know how IIT Madras
was a nodal point in…in developing the low temperature facilities
that have become so important for…for…for establishing similar
facilities all over the country.
I need to mention a few words about Professor Klipping.
You see Professor Klipping had in his laboratory, people from
China, Japan, Soviet Union countries, USA and India.
And in India, through me, he got to know people in IISc Bangalore,
IIT Bombay, IIT Kharagpur,
and the German collaboration in cryogenics expanded to these laboratories.
And Professor Klipping played a very important role
in the development of cryogenics in India.
He got the Mendelson award in 2003
which was given in China to him.
And during the award lecture, he showed my photograph
and he mentioned among all the international collaboration,
the collaboration with India worked
best which I started in IIT with Srinivasan.
So, it was…he was a very good personal friend
of mine and he liked India so much,
after he came to this country, he helped
several institutions in India to grow.
I thought I should mention this because Professor Klipping…
you see there were many German professors who helped IIT,
but Professor Klipping’s help extended
beyond IIT to other institutions in India.
Very good to know all this, sir, yes.
Prof. C. S. Swamy: Which institution in India had the liquid helium facility
Prof. C. S. Swamy: first? Prof. Srinivasan: Yes, the first institution to have liquid helium
facility was National Physical Laboratory,
then TIFR. But the National Physical Laboratory,
there was a person from UK who was
heading the low temperature division.
After he went away, the liquefiers were not functioning.
TIFR also, they had problems, and that is how they
came to me to supply 100 litres
of liquid helium for their experiment.
So now, beyond academics, you also served in
several administrative posts as Dean of Student
Welfare and Dean of Academic Research
and also you were the Deputy Director.
Can you share us your experiences in those positions?
In Low Temperatures?
Yeah.
As Dean of Academic…
see, I didn’t do much administration as Dean of Academic Research,
Dean of Student Affairs and Deputy Director.
I used to go in the afternoon…1 or 2 hours
to the administrative office, complete my administration,
I took my full teaching load during that time.
I used to come in the night to talk to the research students.
But as Dean of Research, there were two contributions
I made which were quite important:
one was the gas supply to various departments broke down
completely for 3 months, and chemistry suffered very badly
because their research depends on the availability of high purity gases.
So they made a complaint to Professor Indiresan
that the stores section and the Indian oxygen
they were having some problem and this disrupted
the gas supply, and they were badly affected.
So Indiresan told me, “You look into the problem.”
And I restored gas supply in 15 days
by changing the method of procurement and distribution.
I set up a Central Gas Supply Unit,
I was…I went there and along with my colleagues
pulled out all the old cylinders in the store,
we got the gases…I…if they were not used fully, we said
return the cylinder, we put it in our cylinder,
returned the cylinders to Asiatic Oxygen.
So we built up a supply of gas.
If anyone wants gas urgently, we will be able to
supply from what we had, and we also saw that
every week or every 15 days, gas will be procured,
it will be distributed to all departments.
Old cylinders will be collected, gas will be shared,
empty cylinders will be returned.
This solved the problem immediately
and I think this unit is still
Prof. Srinivasan: working Prof. Rao: Is still continuing, yes.
Then, I set up the Extra Mural Lectures.
Professor Indiresan felt that students of IIT should
not only be exposed to engineering and science,
they should also be exposed to lectures about art,
medicine, journalism and so on.
So he told me I must organize Extra Mural Lectures every
Wednesday between 4 and 5,
by eminent people in different areas.
And I must do it every week.
So, we did that, and this became very popular.
In fact, Extra Mural Lectures, the Central Lecture
Theatre will be filled up half an hour before the
lecture, and I bring the speaker, there will be no
place for me to sit. It became very popular.
We got Arthur Clarke,
we got Justice V. R. Krishna Iyer to talk about jurisprudence,
Rashmi Mayur to talk about environment,
Khushwant Singh to talk about journalism,
Iravatham Mahadevan to talk about numismatic,
Padma Subrahmanyam dance, Veena Balachander music.
So I made a list of speakers, and saw to it every
Wednesday there was…Extra Mural Lecture.
And after my time, it was handed over to the
students and I learnt that the 100th Extra Mural Lecture was conducted.
Now in a very big…you know the Student Affairs Centre;
a very big auditorium is there, it was conducted a few years back.
But they are not doing it every Wednesday,
I was doing it religiously every Wednesday.
I enjoyed doing this.
These are the two things that…
I…major contributions I had made during my…
(Inaudible off-screen voice)
You see, before I became the Dean,
when I was in the Physics Department,
Professor Ramachandran gave me the responsibility of
setting up the Central Glass Blowing Unit.
I was doing theory, I didn’t know anything about glass blowing,
but I talked to the glass blowers,
find out how much of gas is required,
I procured the machinery, and in 3 months,
this Central Glass Blowing Section became operational.
It helped the Chemistry, Chemical Engineering Department.
And later my lab, because all glass levers
we got made in this Central Glass Blowing Lab.
I think it is still
Prof. Rao: Still.
functioning well.
So these are the 3 major contributions I did.
Thank you very much, sir.
So the Central Glass Blowing Section
and the central gas distribution was still functional.
Of course, these two are indispensable
for experimental research groups in…in…in the Institute.
Prof. Rao: So we are thankful to you for starting off…these units. Prof. Srinivasan: That’s ok
It was my job…you see,
if there’s a problem, I want to solve it quickly
without violating any administrative procedures.
So I called a meeting of the accounts officer,
audit officer, talked to them about the method of
pom…payment to the Asiatic Oxygen, the type of agreement.
After achieving a consensus, I put this into practice.
So, there were no administrative problems.
Otherwise we get bogged down by a lot of procedural problems.
So that I avoided.
So that way, I think it is good for an academician
to take up administrative posts sometimes.
You know, to solve such important issues at the Institute level.
Prof. Swamy:What is your colab…what was your collaboration with IGCAR?
Prof. Rao: IGCAR collaboration. Prof. Srinivasan: See, IG…
See, I have very good friends with
Department of Atomic Energy people.
I worked in Lattice Dynamics.
They also worked on Experimental Lattice Dynamics,
very good collaboration.
So when IGCAR was started,
the Director C. V. Sundaram, he wanted to have collaboration with
IIT Madras in general,
but they wanted to start a low temperature lab there.
They didn’t have the facility,
so two of their scientists worked in my lab for 2 to 3 years.
Used our facilities to do their experiments and then
when they set up the lab, they had the necessary
expertise to run the machines and set up the lab.
So this cooperation with IGCAR proved
useful when I went to IUC Indore,
so I had collaboration with IGCAR in…they were setting up…
it was not from IIT, they were setting up a
Low Energy Accelerator, and they
wanted students to help them.
And I provided small fellowship to students from universities,
they provided accommodation,
and with this help of students,
they set up the Low Energy Accelerator.
The students gained very good hands-on experience,
they got their Ph.D.. Many of them who didn’t come
through GATE, who came from very poor families
are now occupying very top positions abroad
there and the editorial boards of several journals.
So this was a very good collaboration I had with IGCAR.
So now, after you…you…you left IIT, you are
given this big responsibility of establishing the
the National Centre, you know,
Yes.
Inter-University Consortium.
See, I was offered the position of Director of
what is now called UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research.
You see, the UGC set up two other Inter University Centres,
one was IUCAA; astronomy and
astrophysics headed by Professor Narlikar at that time.
The other was an Accelerator Centre in Delhi,
where they had a pelletron.
This was the third centre.
The idea was, The Department of Atomic Energy had
set up very large facility like neutron spectrometers and Dhruva reactor.
They were coming up with synchrotron radiation
facility in CAT Indore and variable energy cyclotron in Calcutta.
So the university scientists should go and use these facilities.
So we needed some interface which will allow
university scientists to access DAE facilities.
In addition, we had to set up some facilities,
so that the university people can characterize their
specimens before taking it to the DAE facility.
If the specimens are not well characterized, results are useless.
So they set up a main centre in Indore with two other centres
in Bombay and Calcutta.
And I was asked to be the Director.
When I went to Indore, there were 6 empty rooms.
So I had to build the 3 centres from scratch.
I realized low temperature experiments are very important for characterization.
So I got a 25 year old nitrogen liquefier which we got
first in our Low Temperature Lab and which was lying idle,
we replaced it with a more modern liquefier.
And I…Professor Klipping was disposing of his old liquid helium machine,
he was getting a new machine,
he said he will give the old machine to me if
I paid for transportation of the machine.
So I got these too.
And I had one person, Ganeshan trained in my lab.
So he set up both these machines.
We produced liquid nitrogen liquid helium in
Devi Ahilya University where our consortium was located
and I set up all low temperature measurement facilities.
And…so that the university people will come and use it.
In 3 years, the IUC…3 centres came up very fast.
When I left, there were about 100 users for our facilities
and users for Dhruva reactor and cyclotron.
We were supposed to build one photoelectron
spectrometer beamline which we built
before Indus One was operational.
So I left, but when Indus One was operational,
our beamline was the first beamline to be installed
and it is still working.
And so today, I made as a Chairman of the Programme
Advisory Committee in Condense Matter Physics,
I made a recommendation, a report to the DST
that they must set up a national centre
for low temperature high magnetic field.
After a discussion which took place in IISc
where all top physicists were there,
I made a detailed estimate of how much it would cost,
what machines should be purchased, what should be the structure.
The DST accepted the report, but I left the IUC.
After that, they set up one facility in IUC Indore,
which will be accessible to all university and another centre
with complementary facility in IISc Bangalore.
This centre is working extremely well,
got an excellent rating in IUC from the DST.
There are 70 users for low tempera…
all types of low temperature measurements you
can do down to 1.8k at up to 16 tesla magnetic field.
So this is acceble…accessible to all university users,
70 users from small universities are using the
low temperature facility.
They are coming out with excellent research
papers in good journals like Physical Review.
All other facilities in Indore, in Bombay, and in Calcutta,
the facilities are being used by 1200 university users every year.
This has become a big success.
But success is not due to me.
It is due to the Directors who succeeded me, they had
a very good vision and they carried forward what I started.
But it is an excellent institution.
Apart from IISc, TIFR it is one institution you have…where
you have excellent facilities for condense matter research.
There are some facilities not available in IISc
and TIFR, they come and use the facilities there.
But you created the nucleation…
It has come up very well.
nucleation centre to grow it in such a big way.
Yeah, it has grown very well.
Then, I retired from IUC Raman Institute in Bangalore, small institute.
They asked me to come as a visiting scientist.
Professor Kumar was the Director.
He wanted to start some new areas;
experimental areas of research and he asked me for suggestions.
I told him we can start work and cold atoms,
where atoms are cooled by lasers
to temperatures of 50 to 100 micro kelvin.
I gave a series of lectures, he got convinced,
he gave seed money,
And Professor Hema Ramachandran built the lab,
I gave her suggestions.
Together we produced a cold cloud
of 50 to 100 micro kelvin of rubidium 87.
Today, it is a very active lab and 3 years ago,
the Bhatnagar Award winner was from that group.
Yes.
So these are two things I did.
I will talk about experimental course.
I would…yeah. We would like to know about
your other role that you got from Academy of
Sciences to establish the…you know the
Prof. Rao: refresher courses which again was a big success. Prof. Srinivasan: Yeah, you see
the Indian Academy of Sciences,
in 1996, they started refresher courses to be
given by fellows of the academy.
2-week courses to update the knowledge of teachers in universities.
These were all theory courses.
In 2001, Professor Mukunda, Chairman of the Science Education Panel
gave me the responsibility of developing
a refresher course in Experimental Physics to improve
lab practice in colleges. Lab practice was in very bad situation.
So I took the help of a young colleague from Goa,
Dr. Priolkar and we initially started in a small way,
we built small electronic circuit using analog
chips, cheap ones for making all measurements.
I learnt electronics at the age of 70 and built these
instruments, and then we developed mechanical items,
and first course was held in Goa in 2001
with about a half a dozen experiments.
We wanted the teachers to wire 3 circuits and take it with them.
They found it very difficult to wire,
they were not used to soldering and so on,
but they did it and they took the wired circuits with them.
They did the experiment.
And because this was course in which they
worked with their hands, there was a lot of enthusiasm.
Prof. Rao: Yeah.
So then, slowly we developed and
we built more and more experiments.
We started with experiments at the B.Sc. level,
then we came to M.Sc. level experiments,
post-M.Sc. level experiments.
By 2010 December,
we had about…we completed 25 courses in different parts of India.
And I found a company in Bangalore to make all the low cost circuits
and equipment to be sold at a price fixed by the academy.
Once the kit came, the demand for the course
grew, and I travelled all over India from Kashmir to Kerala,
Gujarat to Tripura, 9 months to 10 months in a year,
every month for 20 days, I stay at one place, conducted a
refresher course for about 30 teachers,
and then the equipment will be transported to the next place by lorry,
and then I go to the next place, conduct that course,
like this I was doing till 19…2017 February.
I conducted 86 courses.
This was the most popular refresher course.
Experiments went into 150 institutions,
universities, separate institutions, colleges.
Kits were bought by 250 institutions.
Institutions like IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee,
they bought our equipment.
IISER bought our equipment.
I conducted course in IISERs also. Central Universities,
some State University, they have introduced some of the experiments.
Then the academy built a lab for me in Jalahalli,
where they gave me money to buy a thin film unit.
I got a close cycled refrigerator and long term loan from CAT,
where they were developing these refrigerators.
And I do advanced courses and material science in Jalahalli,
because we cannot take these heavy equipment everywhere.
So I developed more advanced circuits,
more advanced experiments.
Total of 55 to 60 experiments I have developed.
In ’87…80…2017 I told them I am 85 years old, travel is very tough for me,
you have to find somebody else to undertake this programme,
and they found Dr. Sundar from
IGCAR Kalpakkam, and he had just retired.
Last one year he has been conducting the courses,
and in July, 100th course will be conducted in Punjab University.
And the president told me, I must bring out the manual
as a book which will be released at the 100th course.
So I prepared I revised the manual, added some appendix to it,
and the book is under publication,
I am correcting the proofs now.
It will be released next month.
So this course came up, was a big success.
Again, you see…my programme succeeded,
but I won’t claim credit for this success.
The only claim I will make is; I take a project,
I put 100 percent effort in it.
But a project I work with, number of colleagues Low Temperature Lab,
I worked with Shankar Narayanan and other students,
they all collaborated with me in developing the Low Temperature Lab.
And Rangarajan was there as a faculty member.
Similarly, in IUC…Professor Siddheshwar Lal
was in charge of administration,
a man who had similar ideas to me,
very quick decision making, very effective.
So we worked together
and his contribution in bringing IUC very great.
Then in Raman Institute, I had colleagues working with me,
academy, I had colleagues working with me.
They all pulled their weight together and that is why
the courses…everything became a success.
So the credit is to be shared by all people…I’ve…
credit doesn’t belong to me.
So what…what…what is your advice to the
younger generation of teachers and researchers?
See, first, I am not such a wise man to give advice.
You, you.
And secondly,
You are a wise man to give…
advice is always sought, but never followed.
So, the only thing I will say is for me, I like to look for
projects which I will enjoy doing and which is
within my ability to do and I succeeded.
This is one way of taking up…any work.
So people have to see…try out whether
this way will work for them.
But there is one thing I have to say.
I believe life is like a relay race. Every generation
runs a part of the relay with the resources available to them,
with their strengths, and with whatever is the social norms,
more values, laws at that time.
So we of the older generation,
we ran the race with whatever resources
were available, whatever wherever chance.
We have handed over the baton to the next generation.
During this time, technological advances have taken place.
They have better resources, better strengths,
social modes have changed, views have changed.
So they will run the race with their resources, their strength,
and their modes, and I think the older generation
must now keep quiet; they should not criticize the younger generation.
They are doing their best.
They will become old,
they will hand over the baton to the next generation.
But the only thing that worries me is, technology is
progressing very, very fast.
But our society is not changing equally fast.
For example, the developments in computer information
technology provide several advantages we…which I
didn’t have 20 years ago.
But it also provides for cyber theft, cybercrimes,
and now society wakes up and it says we must now
make laws to prevent cybercrime.
So society is always one step behind technological advances.
So I don’t know where this will lead.
It may…society may be able to control the advances
so that it is used for good purposes or it may not be able to control.
And what happened to the legendary
Atlantic, may happen to our civilization.
So this is something for concern.
Our society must react to advances in technology equally fast.
This is what I want to say.
So we have two…two questions from Professor Swamy:
one is about back in your IIT days, the visits of Professor Bardeen and
Yeah.
Professor Chandrasekhar.
Professor Bardeen got the Nobel Prize twice.
Once for discovering transistors, and…which revolutionized
semiconductor industry along with Brattain and Shockley.
And the second time, for working out the
theory of superconductivity along with…I forget their name,
two other young people.
Prof. Swamy: Cooper and Schrieffer.
So he came to
Cooper and Schrieffer.
Ah, Schrieffer and Cooper.
So, for 50 years, people didn’t understand how superconductivity arises.
It was Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer who provided the first
The BCS.
mechanism to understand how superconductivity arise.
He came to IIT, and he visited our lab also,
gave a talk in the Central Lecture Theatre.
When Nobel laureates come in our field, we feel enthused.
It…it…it gives us a lot…lot more enthusiasm especially works in
superconductivity gives us a lot more enthusiasm to work in the field.
Professor Chandrasekhar is a theoretical astrophysicist.
He had visited IISc when I was a student.
So he visited here.
He was a very good theoretical physicist.
He visited the labs, but his area was totally different from ours, so…
Prof. Swamy: I am asking about the astrophysicist.
Yeah, Chandrasekhar astrophysicist.
So, his area was different.
He has done extraordinarily good work.
He was one of those people for whom the Nobel Prize was delayed.
Prof. Rao: Which part of the…
He was one of those people who will take a problem,
work on it till he completes it to the last INT, then write a book on it,
which will be an authoritative book.
But his work was in an area totally different from ours.
Of course, his work enthused us,
but not to the same extent as Bardeen’s visit.
Can you please tell us about Professor Tatachari?
Yeah, Professor Tatachari was my brother in law.
We were actually Ph.D. students together in IISc.
He worked with Professor G. N. Ramachandran, very brilliant person.
He was not only brilliant in physics, he knew Sanskrit very well,
philosophy very well, he could paint, draw very well,
he could talk authoritatively on art.
Music.
Philosophy and so on.
He went to USA worked in MIT with the Nobel laureate,
then went to Stanford University, and he was working on
Synchrotron Radiation Sources.
So he came to the IIT for 2 years,
and he worked in the Applied Mechanics Department.
At that time, we don’t have synchrotron facility,
so he changed and he worked on
Kirlian photography.
Kirlian photography was that if
you send some high frequency radiation,
you see some halos around the body,
and looking at the strength of the halos,
you can make some…come to some
conclusions about the health of the person.
But one did not know how these photographs arose,
why the high frequency radiation gives the halos.
So when Tatachari came here,
he made systematic investigations on the effect of the
dielectric medium between the high frequency source
and the photographic plate to see what happens to the halos
when you introduce different materials of different dielectric constants.
But this work he did for 2 years,
then he went back and resumed his synchrotron radiation work.
He worked there for another 23 years
and came back to India, to settle in India.
And then he had a bladder problem and he passed away.
But I will say that he was one of the strong influences on my
on me because when I went to IISc, I knew physics,
but I didn’t know anything else.
And I found he was same age as me and his knowledge was so wide.
So I started reading a lot of books and wide…I widened my knowledge.
So he was a great influence on me.
Thank you, sir.
Prof. Swamy: The reason I asked about Professor Tatachari was the Kirlian photography.
Prof. Swamy: Now, there was a lecture given by a neuro-physician
in Chemistry Department somewhere around ‘80s,
he talked about using this radiation, whatever equipment to find out
in Jeeva Samadhis you know, there Jeeva Samadhis all over India.
So he could find out whether the body inside was alive or not.
In fact, he talked about a historical thing
which happened during the First World War.
See, one of the things in the Kirlian photography which
Tatacharya also found was, you take a fresh leaf, you cut it one half,
you remove that one half, put the other half,
you take the photograph, you get the photograph of the full leaf,
the other leaf is not there, but it leaves some imprint.
So how he got that full leaf photograph, he was working on that,
but then he went back.
So he went back to his old work on synchrotron radiation.
Prof. Swamy: In fact, I think he guided one or two students for M.Tech., Applied Mechanics
He worked with the…in the Electrical Engineering Department
Prof. Swamy: Yeah.
using their high frequency…say, setup.
Prof. Swamy: Thank you.
So, Professor R. S. what are your other interests?
See, my other interests
Other than science and that.
See, I like to read a lot of books on…
my interest is in history, especially ancient history,
like Greek history, Roman history, Persian history and so on,
I don’t like to read history as a series of dates and wars.
I want to read about the life of the people,
what were the forces which caused the war or whatever it is.
So, I have read translations, Herodotus.
Yes.
Histories in English translation, Thucydides, Peloponnesian War.
I have read all Greek plays by Euripides,
Sophocles, Aeschylus, Agam…Aristophanes in English,
and I have read Roman history, Tacitus Annals all this I have read.
I like to read psychology, parapsychology,
and psychology I have read Rhine’s book on parapsychology.
I also…I am interested in cricket.
So…I used to play cricket, but I am interested very much in cricket.
When India plays, I watch all the matches even
now, with great interest and enthusiasm.
(Indistinct off-screen voice)
Then, I used to listen to Carnatic music.
Prof. Rao: Carnatic music, okay.
But now I can’t, because my hearing is bad.
Telling stories to grandchildren [laughter].
And then I like to gather small children, and then
when…when I am with children, I become a child.
My imagination soars… I tell them,
I make my own characters and tell them lots of stories.
Yesterday, Professor Manoharan’s daughter, she was
asking me about a story I told her when she was a
small child, about a magician; Egyptian magician whom I named
Go Gapasha who lived for 1000 years ago.
So that story became very famous among
the children in Lake View Road [laughter].
So this is what I do.
So Professor R. S., now one last question,
but it is the most important one.
See
We’d like to know about .
my wife has been a tremendous support to me.
If I had married somebody else then I am sure she
would have divorced me, because I used to spend all the time in the lab.
I will go home at 5 O’clock or 6 O’clock,
have dinner, come back to the lab. Go back at 11.
I never took any interest in household affairs.
My children were all brought up by her, their schooling;
which school they attended, everything was done by her.
I didn’t even know what my bank account was.
She was managing everything.
Left me free to do my work.
She was a very good artist, she was trained in Kalakshetra,
in traditional Tanjore Paintings. She did beaten copper work,
and she will make huge rangoli,
it will take 30 days to make the rangoli,
8 hours a day, but she has done it along with Vasudevan’s wife,
my sister-in-law. So she has her own interest.
So, what she will be doing…her painting, and I do my science.
But we have a very good understanding.
So, our life has been extremely pleasant and
I would not have been able to do any of these things,
but for the support which she extended to me.
She has been tremendous moral and physical support to me.
My children are very much more attached to the
mother than to me because she
looked after them completely, whereas
I was taking care…the lab was my child [laughter].
So I was there in the lab all the time.
I had very good relations with all my students.
See, all of them are occupying top positions now,
but they still have a lot of affection for me and I am very grateful to them.
And I am very grateful to 2 institutions in the country: IISc Bangalore,
which developed my confidence that I can do research on my own,
And IIT Madras, which gave me a chance to grow.
I think the IIT Madras is a first rate institution and
it will grow stronger and stronger in
coming years. That is my wish for IIT Madras.
Ma’am, would you like to say one word about Professor R. S.? No?
I only say that the Physics Department was our
home was…it was to them like another home.
So they…that is why…that is how we had this bonding.
So you had…as he said, two children, and the third child was
Professor R. S. himself, you took care.
Yes, yes, yes [laughter].
Very…nice talk.
Very good bonding we have.
Prof. Swamy: Can I…sorry. Now that you talked about IIT Madras,
Yeah.
Prof. Swamy: you must be knowing that IIT Madras has received the first position.
Yeah, I saw that,
and I am very proud of that.
See, the IIT Madras has grown so much and so well, under…
see after I left, ‘90, the growth is enormous in the IIT Madras.
Prof. Swamy: Sir, I have one small doubt; in the sup…in the Low Temperature
Prof. Swamy: Lab, you said you were working with Professor Subbarao,
Prof. Swamy: what was the highest temperature…
Prof. Swamy: I am sorry for the lowest where you have observed super conductivity?
No, in IIT Madras, we can go down to 1.8 k.
No, he is talking about the…
Highest temperature, oh, you want highest temperature.
Prof. Swamy: No, no, no, I am asking about superconductivity.
Tc, Tc.
Tc. You know, the highest Tc in superconductors is
140 k for mercury compound, thallium compound under pressure.
We didn’t study that compound.
We have studied thallium, barium compound
where the temperature is around 100 k.
Professor R. S, I…I made the mercury compound
You made this, yeah.
which showed a drop at 140 k.
So, about 100 k. I think Sankaranarayan
will remember better than me.
Prof. Swamy: No, just the metallic ones, how much did you go
Prof. Swamy: when you were working with IGCAR and all that?
The conventional one.
You see.
The conventional.
We started with 90 k samples and went up to something like 114 k.
No, sir, the low Tc.
Prof. Swamy: Metal, Metal.
The conventional ones, metal ones.
Yeah, low Tc,
temperatures the maximum low Tc materials,
maximum temperature predicted on
25.
BCS theory will be about 25 to 30 k.
Prof. Swamy: Yeah.
So, when the high Tc came, BCS theory is not complete.
Yeah, yeah.
So there is a new mechanism for high Tc
superconductivity. Nobody knows what the mechanism is till today.
People are working on it, but no final theory has been established.
Prof. Swmay: Now, why I am asking is, Professor Subbarao,
Prof. Swamy: the compounds he was working on,
Prof. Swamy: now, he was originally not working on those compounds.
Prof. Swamy: In fact, he was asking me, “Why don’t you start?”
Prof. Swamy: Because we were working on something like that.
Prof. Swamy: I just want to tell you, that in 1980 itself, we tried to
Prof. Swamy: predict that we have got copper in 3 plus oxidation state,
Prof. Swamy: I could not prove it. So, I just went to Germany,
Prof. Swamy: I asked some…I came back to Professor C. N. R. Rao,
Prof. Swamy: I couldn’t get help from him, but then only one professor;
Prof. Swamy: Professor Hagen Müller.
Prof. Swamy: When I told him, “This is what we were looking for,”
Prof. Swamy: and I told him what the systems were doing,
Prof. Swamy: he just made a remark, “You should have got a Nobel Prize.”
[laughter].
Prof. Swamy: Not, not, that it is a joke.
Prof. Swamy: I wonder why he made that…because now that you tell me
Prof. Swamy: that nobody has understood the mechanism,
Prof. Swamy: so, I can very well see why he must have
Prof. Swamy: told this, because nobody has understood this.
Yeah, the reason is several…see,
it is known, it is not the lattice vibrations
Prof. Swamy: Yeah, yeah.
which caused the pairing of the electrons.
Then they looked for other mechanisms.
Prof. Swamy: Correct.
One is, you see resonating valence bond like in benzene.
So this theory was put forward by Anderson.
There’s another theory; spin fluctuations.
See, the electron has a spin.
It will interact with spin fluctuation that may be responsible.
It looks like spin fluctuation theory may be the correct one,
but there is no final agreement on the…what is the correct theory so far.
Prof. Swamy: And there is no chance of getting a room temperature, so.
Yeah.
I think there is still chance.
Two high Tc materials,
but see when high Tc was discovered, people thought we
can make room temperature superconductor.
If we know how high Tc materials…what is the mechanism,
we may be able to make room temperature, we don’t know still.
Prof. Swamy: Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Professor R. S. for this
Thank you.
wonderful enlightening discussion.
I really appreciate your time.
Thank you, very much. Namaste, ma’am.
- Contribute
to the Centre -
Monetary
Support 
Digital
Material
