Avoiding the Big Bang

This post is a review of My Tale of Four Cities, the autobiography of the astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar. Narlikar was known, among other things, for providing steady-state (Hoyle-Narlikar) alternatives to the Big Bang theory of the universe, and for combining Mach's principle with general relativity.

The book was translated, by the author himself, from the original in Marathi and is divided into four parts corresponding to the times he spent in various cities over his life. He was born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra in 1938.

Benares

The first part of the book describes Narlikar's early life in Benares, where his father was a mathematics professor in the famous university. It gives a feeling for what the life of someone born into an elite academic family in India looked like.

Apart from absorbing intellectual influences from his father, Narlikar was mentored by one of his uncles who wrote down mathematical problems on a blackboard at home challenging his young nephew. His mother was a scholar of Sanskrit, a language with which he was made quite familiar by his parents. A stream of academics, musicians, and other prominent people - friends and colleagues of his father - filed through the house.

Cambridge

Narlikar received a Tata scholarship to Cambridge (the interview process was dramatic and amusing; part of the loan had to be returned at a certain interest rate). He was advised by Fred Hoyle (who coined the phrase 'Big Bang') at Cambridge, where he passed the Mathematical Tripos, and where he was contemporaneous with physicists such as Stephen Hawking, Brandon Carter and George Ellis.

This part of the book describes life in Cambridge in some detail, especially for students from India, in the post-independence era. This section also describes Narlikar's triumphal visit to India where he was feted by the press and recognized by the government with a high award, at the young age of twenty six.

Mumbai

Narlikar returned after several years in England to take up a faculty position at the TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) in Mumbai (then Bombay). The description in this part of the book relates the issues facing Indian scientists choosing to return professionally to their country.

However, it can be seen that due to his fame Narlikar's difficulties were often smoothed over (such as when he tried to get a telephone connection, a tedious and slow affair in those days - he was told at first that it would take 5 years). Since his profile was quite prominent, he was able to continue working with and visit protractedly, international collaborators.

Pune

The final part of the book deals with Narlikar's leadership of the IUCAA (Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics) in the city of Pune. It contains many details about the logistics and bureaucracy involved in bringing up such an institution.

Some inspiration for IUCAA might have come from a similar institute that Hoyle had set up at Cambridge, initially called IOTA (Institute of Theoretical Astronomy), later contracted to IOA as it expanded to include, for example, observational astronomy.

Narlikar was also a successful science popularizer, writing nonfiction and fiction and scripting television shows.

Conclusion

The book is astonishingly detailed. The author either has a phenomenal memory or very detailed notes on his life - my suspicion is the former. The only error I could find in the more than five hundred pages is when Narlikar states that Yuval Ne'eman won the Nobel prize - he didn't.

I was attracted to the book by Narlikar's scientific prominence and also by the fact that I overlapped in college with his two elder daughters - though they were ahead of me by a several years, and were not aware of me.