Science at the Sabha 2024

Speakers

Annapurni Subramaniam

Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore

Astronomy from Ground and Space

National and international astronomy projects have been using equipment on the earth as well as in space. India's first space observatory, AstroSat collects a wide-range of scientific data that provides insights into our universe.

Astronomical studies in pursuit of understanding our universe are being carried out using the ground as well as space based experiments. There have been various international space missions that contributed to the multi-wavelength studies of various astrophysical phenomena in the past. India's first space observatory, AstroSat has got significant attention in the international scene with its wide-ranging scientific output. As the calibration scientist of the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope on AstroSat, the speaker will talk about the considerable knowledge regarding space missions. Here, I present some highlights of my journey in astronomy and some thoughts for the future.

Annapurni Subramaniam is an optical astronomer with research interests in Star clusters, Classical Be stars, Young stellar Objects, Blue straggler stars, Magellanic Clouds, nearby galaxies, UV astronomy. She is the calibration scientist for the UV Imaging Telescope (UVIT) on board India’s first space observatory, ASTROSAT. Her group has worked on software for Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which is being built by an international consortium with India as a partner.

Annapurni is an active member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that is the leading authority in assigning official names and designations to astronomical objects. She is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She is currently the Director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics.

S. Ramakrishnan

Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore

Plastics – the good, the bad and the ugly

Plastics are here to stay, but the question is: where and how to use them? As a polymer scientist, the speaker suggests an update to the frequently used adage: Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-Reinvent.

We celebrated the dawn of the Plastics Age a little over 50 years ago, but the potential hazards of improper use, handling, and disposal of polymeric materials has become increasingly clear to us in the 21st century. While it is obvious that we cannot simply wish away the use of plastics entirely, it is time to reexamine the issue, and wisely devise strategies that will help mitigate the disastrous environmental damage that plastics are causingThe talk will present the context for the existing problems associated with plastics, their usage, and examine the possible solutions to the crisis that is looming at-large. This polymer scientist suggests an update to the frequently used adage: Reduce-Reuse-Recycle-Reinvent.

S Ramakrishnan is a polymer chemist and focuses on developing new strategies to control the properties of polymers, in solution and in the bulk by tinkering with their structure at a molecular level. His team design and study synthetic polymers through novel molecular techniques.

Ramakrishnan did his early schooling in Chennai. He received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (SSB) for Chemical Sciences in 2005. He is a fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. He is a Professor in the Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science.

D. Shankar

CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Goa

Evolution of our understanding of the dynamics of the North Indian Ocean

What do we know about the circulation of the seas around India? In the past few decades, our understanding of the underlying dynamics has evolved. We will review this evolution and take a peek into the future.

Our understanding of the circulation of the North Indian Ocean, or the seas around India, and its underlying dynamics have evolved over the last few decades. This talk provides an overview of this evolution and takes a peek into the future. We will discuss the circulation of the ocean forced by the winds and the theoretical framework that underpins the dynamics. Studies of the North Indian Ocean and its circulation have largely been described using linear theory providing broad insights. Nonlinear effects cannot, however, be ignored and are important for accurate predictions.

D. Shankar is a physical oceanographer focusing on tropical ocean dynamics. He is involved in projects that provide basic data on ocean currents required for theoretical analysis of the circulation and dynamics of the seas. He works on models of the North Indian Ocean to quantitatively understand ocean dynamics and observed circulation.

Shankar was trained as an aeronautics engineer at the Indian Institute Technology Madras (IITM). He received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (SSB) for Earth Sciences in 2011. He was named IITM Distinguished Alumnus in 2022. He is a Chief Scientist at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography.

Saket Saurabh

The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai

The Art and Math of Puzzle Solving

We start by looking at some popular heuristic strategies to solve puzzles such as Sudoku. We will then draw connections between these strategies and a formal mathematical framework for studying heuristics.

In this presentation, we will explore several commonly used techniques, also known as heuristics, for solving puzzles like Sudoku. These strategies involve reducing the given data to solve the puzzles. Data reduction techniques are extensively used in real-world applications to tackle computationally difficult problems. The formal expression of the efficiency and accuracy of these pre-processing procedures has been a longstanding challenge. In this talk, we will establish connections between these techniques and a specific subfield of computer science, parameterized complexity, that lends itself well to a mathematical analysis of pre-processing heuristics.

Saket Saurabh is a Theoretical Computer Scientist with research interests in Parameterized Complexity, Moderately Exponential Time Algorithms, Graph Theory and Approximation Algorithms. His group works on designing efficient algorithms (or proving it does not exist) for hard problems arising in every domain. He has co-authored two books: Parameterized Algorithms and Kernelization theory of parameterized preprocessing.

Saket did BMath at Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) and received a PhD in Computer Science, from the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai. He received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (SSB) for Science and Technology in 2021. He was named one of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Distinguished Members in 2022. He is a professor at IMSc.

4:00 PM - 4:45 PM	Annapurni Subramaniam, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru Astronomy from Ground and Space
4:45 PM - 5:30 PM	S. Ramakrishnan, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru Plastics – the good, the bad and the ugly
5:30 PM - 6:00 PM	Refreshment Break
6:00 PM - 6:45 PM	D. Shankar, CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography, Goa Evolution of our understanding of the dynamics of the North Indian Ocean
6:45 PM - 7:30 PM	Saket Saurabh, The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai The Art and Math of Puzzle Solving

Science at the Sabha 2024

Program

Speakers

Annapurni Subramaniam

Astronomy from Ground and Space

S. Ramakrishnan

Plastics – the good, the bad and the ugly

D. Shankar

Evolution of our understanding of the dynamics of the North Indian Ocean

Saket Saurabh

The Art and Math of Puzzle Solving

Registration

Printables

Recorded Talks

Photos

Instructions to the participants