Einstein Lectures
The Einstein Lectures series was initiated in 2015 as part of the centenary celebration of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Schools, colleges and other organizations can request to organize a lecture anywhere in India. Selected partner organizations will work with the ICTS in selecting an appropriate speaker depending on the date and venue of the lecture, and the nature of the audience. Einstein lectures cover a wide spectrum of topics in physics and related areas. Speakers range from early-career scientists to international luminaries. ICTS will support the travel and honorarium for the speaker. Partner organizations are expected to take care of the local organization.
Contact: einstein . lectures @ icts . res . in
Past Lectures
Order and patterns in randomness
Abhishek Dhar (ICTS-TIFR, Bengaluru)
28 February 2020, 09:30 to 10:30
Kuvempu Auditorium, C V Raman Block, REVA University, Bengaluru
The talk will describe how physicists and mathematicians find hidden patterns and information in apparently random looking events. I will try to do this through the examples of the Random Walk, Brownian Motion, many particle systems in Statistical Physics, and finally a card trick. Download Postermore
Faint Strains of the Gravitational Wave Symphony and the Dawn of Multi-messenger Astronomy
Bala Iyer (ICTS-TIFR, Bengaluru)
25 November 2019, 15:00 to 17:00
E.M.S. Seminar Complex, University of Calicut.
The first detection of gravitational waves from a black hole binary in 2015 was a breakthrough, taking a century to realize, and made possible by the coming together of a remarkable experiment and an exquisite theory complemented by the best in sophisticated data analysis, state of the art...more
Black Holes and Holography
Amin Nizami (Ashoka University, Sonepat)
22 October 2019, 11:30 to 12:30
I-view studio, Department of Civil Engineering, First Floor, NIT Jalandhar, Punjab -144011
This talk will be a basic introduction to the physics of black holes and one theme in modern theoretical physics - holography - which was inspired by their study. We will explore how, from initially being considered unphysical solutions of Einstein’s theory of gravity, black holes were eventually...more
Millisecond Pulsars - The Born-again Pulsars
G Srinivasan (Raman Research Institute, retired)
21 October 2019, 17:00 to 18:00
ICSR Main Auditorium, IIT Madras
Neutron stars are highly condensed ‘cold’ stars with a mean density of 10 14 g cm -3 . Since they rotate rapidly and are very strongly magnetized, they function as powerful ‘dynamos’, generating incredible voltages. This results in relativistic particles and radiation being emitted along the...more
The revolutionary concept of “boundary layer” and its prevalence in aeronautics
Sourabh S. Diwan (Aerospace Engg., IISc, Bengaluru)
11 October 2019, 11:00 to 12:00
MBA Seminar Hall, MBA Block, Acharya Institute of Technology, Bengaluru
In 1904, one year before Einstein published his miraculous papers, Ludwig Prandtl proposed the revolutionary concept of a boundary layer. This idea, in one shot, bridged the gap between the classical disciplines of “hydraulics” and “hydrodynamics” and gave birth to the modern discipline of “fluid...more
String theory and Strong interactions
Loganayagam R (ICTS-TIFR, Bengaluru)
26 September 2019, 11:00 to 12:00
School of Sciences, Center for Post Graduate Studies (CPGS), Jain Deemed-to-be University, #18/3, 9th Main Road, 3rd Block, Jayanagar, Bengaluru - 560011
The history of string theory begins with a set of curious experimental observations in 1960s about strongly interacting particles (hadrons). This relation has many surprising aspects to it which took many decades to uncover. I will talk about how advances since 1998 (arising from the work of a...more
Dawn of new astronomy: How Einstein can take from Planck to Hubble
B. S. Sathyaprakash (Bert Elsbach Professor of Physics at The Pennsylvania State University, and Professor of Physics at The Cardiff University)
02 March 2019, 18:00 to 19:30
Dr H Narasimhaiah Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bengaluru - 04
On August 17, 2017, the US LIGO and European Virgo gravitational wave detectors made a monumental discovery, of the inspiral and coalescence of a pair of neutron stars. The collision of neutron stars created massive fireworks that is still visible to the best telescopes. Two seconds after LIGO's...more
Searching for Einstein's Biggest Blunder
Subhabrata Majumdar (TIFR, Mumbai)
27 January 2019, 17:00 to 18:00
Lecture Hall, IIT Guwahati
In 1917, Albert Einstein inserted a term called the `cosmological constant' into his theory of general relativity to predict a stationary universe. A decade later, when it became clear that our Universe was expanding, Einstein ab andoned the constant calling it the 'biggest blunder' of his life...more
Is the universe geometric or algebraic?
Minhyong Kim (University of Oxford, UK and KIAS, South Korea)
21 December 2018, 15:00 to 16:00
Christ University, Main Auditorium, Hosur Road, Bengaluru - 29
In recent years, I have heard distinguished physicists ask this question with increasing frequency and urgency. In this lecture, I will try to convey to the audience some sense of the meaning of this question, and present a few simple reflections on it from the point of view of a mathematician...more
Space-time and Gravity: From Newton to Hawking and Beyond
Spenta R. Wadia (International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bengaluru)
08 October 2018, 11:00
Bipin Chandra Pal Seminar Hall, Assam University, Silchar
This talk will be about the evolution of our ideas of space, time and gravity from Newtonian physics to its radical modification by Einstein in the special and general theories of relativity. Black holes are predictions of Einstein's theory and their existence leads to important paradoxes when...more

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