Indian-origin prof may be in line for Physics Nobel
NEW DELHI: Berkeley University professor Dr Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a physicist of Indian origin, has made it to the Thomson Reuters list of potential candidates who may join the ranks of Albert Einstein and Marie Curie by picking up this year’s Physics Nobel Prize.
Ramesh, an alumnus of Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science, works in the area of complex oxides and, in 1999, started looking into the confluence of electricity and magnetism through Multiferroics — materials that are both ferroelectric and magnetic simultaneously.
“The original idea was to control magnetism by electricity to enable a broad range of low-power electronics... of course, we have to figure out the fundamentals first,” Dr Ramamoorthy told Hindustan Times.
Since 2002, the science and intellectual property unit of Thomson Reuters has accu- rately predicted 35 Nobel laureates, basing its forecasts on scientists’ citations, or references to its published papers by others.
Dr Ramamoorthy quoted a shloka from the Bhagavad Gita to explain his state of mind: “This is just a prediction. We cannot and should not take it seriously. If I get it, it will be dedicated to humanity, to science and to the young people of the world. If I do not, then I have to take it in an equally good stride.”
A total of seven scientists, including six in two different groups of three each, have been listed as possible contenders for the Physics Nobel.