What is a black hole?

24th April, 2020 | 4 - 5:15 PM

A black hole is an exotic compact object whose gravitational attraction is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. Black holes were long considered a mathematical curiosity of eccentric theoretical physicists, but recent observational results provided compelling evidence in favour of the existence of these exotic objects in the universe. Astronomers have identified numerous stellar black hole candidates in binary star systems and also established that a source known as Sagittarius A*, at the core of our own Milky Way galaxy, contains a supermassive black hole of about 4.3 million solar masses. In 2016, the LIGO collaboration announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves from two merging black holes. In 2019, the first-ever direct image of a black hole and its vicinity was published, following observations made by the Event Horizon Telescope of the supermassive black hole in the centre of the galaxy Messier 87.

Black hoes are often considered to be the mathematical laboratory to study the fundamental laws of physics; in the particular relationship between quantum theory and gravitation. A remarkable property of the black hole is that it behaves like a thermodynamic system, with temperature and entropy. It is widely believed that the study of these properties will provide us with clues about the ultimate aim of theoretical physics, the unification of all forces, the theory of everything!

In this (online) seminar, I will present a non-technical account of the fascinating history of black hole research.

An introduction to the Theory of Partitions

The Theory of Partitions is an active branch of number theory and combinatorics. It was initiated by Euler and later, many people such as J. J. Sylvester, S. Ramanujan, G. H. Hardy made important contributions to it. Ramanujan's stunning advances in this field, either by himself or in collaboration with Hardy, opened the doors for many of the current areas within number theory. This talk will be an introduction to this beautiful area of mathematics mainly concentrating on the partition function p(n) and the congruences satisfied by it.

Alan M. Turing: ushering the age of computational thinking

We will trace few contributions of Alan Turing: how he laid the groundstone for computer science when trying to answer fundamental questions about the very foundations of mathematics and logical reasoning, as well as his thoughts about "intelligent machines" and how to characterize them.

How do we Read literature?

Between conceptual and cultural readings, between 'close' and 'distant' readings of literary texts, what are the different ways of approaching literature? This session will read out from select literary texts and interactively demonstrate various ways of engaging with them.

Shape of things

Design is a multidisciplinary field that borrows applied knowledge from various technical fields, marketing principles as well as takes inspiration from art and sociology. Amongst various aspects of a product, the appearance is very critical. It needs to be attractive, and has to respond to cognitive aspects for effective human interaction. This pictorial presentation will be quick glance at the process of designing aesthetic and semantic aspects of a product.