Jayant Vishnu Narlikar (1938-2025): A Man of Science and Letters

Jayant Vishnu Narlikar, often called “India’s Einstein”, was much more than an astrophysicist and mathema­tician. He broke away from the mould of the typical sci­entist who spoke in arcane language. He was also an institution builder, having founded the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune. Established in 1988, IUCAA has been pivotal in promoting research and education in astronomy and astrophysics in India.

For students of physics, his televised conversations on Doordarshan were not only inspiring but also informative. He demystified ideas and concepts such as Newtonian physics, astron­omy, astrophysics, black holes, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, and more. He also authored books that were translated into multiple Indian languages to popularise science.

As the founding director of IUCAA, Narlikar con­ceived the institution from scratch. He fostered a scientif­ic temperament among both scientists and the general public. His enduring advice to the scientific community at large was to remain forever curious and to go beyond the limitations of science through constant hard work, exploring new ways to unravel the mysteries of nature.

Born into a family of mathematical prodigies on July 19, 1938, in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Narlikar was the son of Vishnu Vasudeva Narlikar, a mathematics pro­fessor at Banaras Hindu Uni­versity (BHU), and Sumati Narlikar, a Sanskrit scholar. He completed his BSc at BHU in 1957 and pursued higher studies at Cambridge Univer­sity. Under the mentorship of Sir Fred Hoyle, he earned his PhD in 1963 and went on to co-develop the Hoyle– Narlikar theory of gravity. This theory integrates Albert Einstein’s general relativity with Mach’s principle, offer­ing an alternative to the Big Bang theory.

Despite his engagement with the deep philosophies of mathematics and astro­physics, Narlikar remained committed to simplifying science for the masses. In one of his early TV appearances, he famously explained the limitations of the Big Bang theory in layman’s terms. In his gentle voice, he said: “If you say that the universe started in a big explosion, then we can ask: how long ago did that explosion take place? Now this can be calculated—you can work out the age of the universe up to the present epoch. It turns out, according to the most popular Big Bang theory, that the age is about eight billion years…. But astronomers have been reporting that there are certain stars and galaxies that are older… The idea that the universe started in a big bang seems to be in trouble. Instead, if you say that the universe never had a beginning … then there is no conflict with the astronomical observations.”

Narlikar, who was fea­tured on Carl Sagan’s iconic TV show Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, also authored sci­ence fiction books, novels, and short stories in English, Hindi, and Marathi. His autobiography in Marathi is titled Char Nagarantale Maze Vishwa.

A multifaceted scientist, Narlikar received numerous prestigious honours, includ­ing the Padma Bhushan in 1965 (he was the youngest Indian to receive it, at age 26) and the Padma Vibhushan in 2004. A friend of the late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking—he once recount­ed playing table tennis with him before Hawking was affected by muscular atro­phy—Narlikar also worked with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, where he headed the Theoretical Astrophysics Group.

Narlikar is survived by his three daughters. His wife, Mangala Narlikar, a mathe­matician, passed away in July 2023. Among their daugh­ters, Geeta is a biomedical researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, while Girija and Leelavati are computer scientists.

A man of boundless curiosity, Narlikar once experimented with astrological predictions and concluded that they “had no value”.

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