Ashoke Sen

Professions :

One of the questions that always puzzled human history is, what are we, and everything around us, made of.

questions everything always history

I work in string theory. This is a branch of physics which assumes that the elementary objects in the universe are not particles but one-dimensional objects, that is, strings.

universe physics theory work

Doing physics is a lot of fun if you like it.

doing you physics fun

Good teachers have joined Presidency from different parts of the country and even abroad. We have got idealistic teachers, and we are relying on their idealism. But state universities pay their teachers less than the central ones. If salary is not on a par with central institutes, teachers would tend to leave for those places.

teachers leave good country

The beauty of string theory is that it is all about mathematics. For that, you don't need resources or labs. Just sit in your room and do the maths.

your you mathematics beauty

The beauty of science is to imagine more than we can prove. And string theory gives you a radically different interpretation of the universe.

you universe beauty science

In theoretical physics, one can, in principle, work from anyplace as long as one has a computer and Internet connection. So I do not find any disadvantage of being in Allahabad.

internet physics work long

Indian science has a bright future.

bright bright-future future science

There are no excuses for theoretical physicists not to perform and deliver.

deliver perform excuses theoretical

My work on symmetries of string theory is on what is known as strong-weak coupling duality, or S-duality.

string duality theory work

My work on black holes was on the connection between black holes and elementary particles.

connection between black work

My work indicated that if we consider smaller and smaller black holes, at some stage, the properties of black holes become indistinguishable from those of elementary particles.

some stage black work

One of the main successes of string theory is that it has been able to unify the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity, and quantum mechanics.

general quantum gravity theory

Throughout my work, I have assumed that the standard model is correct, and hence, the Higgs boson should be found. Although this is not directly connected to string theory, the discovery of the Higgs boson demonstrated the power of theoretical reasoning.

theory power work discovery

To me, the most exciting thing about the discovery of the Higgs particle is that its existence was predicted fifty years before its discovery through experiment.

through me existence discovery

Theoretical physics hardly requires any research funding, so I never felt the need. The overall government and institutional support has been good enough for my work.

good support government work

My dream was to be a 'scientist' even before I knew what a scientist did.

did even before dream

I came to realise that string theory offers us the best hope of finding a unified theory of all matter and forces.

finding best hope matter

I had been interested in particle physics, which deals with the fundamental constituents of matter.

which been physics matter

In many ways, string theory attempts to go beyond Einstein's dream... an all-encompassing description of nature that works at large distances where gravity becomes important as well as small distances where quantum mechanics is important.

small nature important dream

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