Prof. M.G.K. Menon

Mamballikalathil Govind Kumar Menon (born August 28, 1928), also known as M. G. K. Menon, is a physicist and policy maker from India.He has had a role in almost every facet of science and technology development in India during the past four decades. but the important one was nurturing the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, which his mentor Homi J. Bhabha founded in 1945.

He undertook experiments with cosmic rays to explore the properties of fundamental particles. He was instrumental in setting up balloon flight experiments, as well as deep underground experiments with cosmic ray neutrinos in the mines at Kolar Gold Fields. He is currently Vikram Sarabhai Fellow of the Indian Space Research Organisation. In the past, he has been President of the National Academy of Sciences, India, Director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai (1966-1975), Chairman Board Of Governors, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and Chairman Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad. He has won the Abdus Salam Award, and is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He is one of the prominent scientists from Kerala. The asteroid 7564 Gokumenon was named in his honour in late 2008

M. G. K. Menon was educated at Jaswant College, Jodhpur, and the Royal Institute of Science, Bombay, before he moved to the University of Bristol for his Ph.D in elementary particle physics under the guidance of Nobel Laureate Cecil F. Powell in 1953.

He joined TIFR in 1955 "essentially because of Bhabha", and the association lasted nearly five decades. He became the director of the institute in 1966, at the age of 38, following Bhabha's untimely death. In fact, M. G. K. Menon began handling the affairs of the institute ever since he was barely 33 because of Bhabha's increasing involvement with the country's nascent atomic energy programme.

Special Awards: He won the Padmabhushan in 1968 and the highest honor of Padma Vibhushan in 1985

M.G.K Menon was involved in all the large-scale experiments at the TIFR from its early days, in particular, the cosmic ray studies initiated in 1964 in the mines at Kolar Gold Fields (KGF). In the nearly three-decade-long story of experiments at the KGF, relating to muons, neutrinos, weak interactions and proton decay, he played a major role. It was the KGF experiment that ruled out the hypothesis called "Utah Effect" to describe the energy spectrum of muons reaching underground.

The more significant achievement of the KGF experiment was to demonstrate the feasibility of doing neutrino-induced interactions and related new phenomena deep underground. It was also the first experiment in the world, in 1965, to detect atmospheric neutrinos, which are formed at the top of the atmosphere due to cosmic ray interactions. The neutrino experiments also threw up a handful of rare events, called Kolar events, which are suggestive of massive (with more that 3 giga electron Volt mass) and long-lived (lifetimes of about a billionth of a second) particles. These have, however remained unexplained till date and are perhaps suggestive of new physics.

In the 1980s, M. G. K. Menon led the proton decay experiment at the KGF, the first major dedicated experiment in the world to look for decays of the apparently stable proton, which set a limit on a proton's lifetime to be greater than 10 to the power 30 years. The experiment also provided limits on the existence of the hypothetical magnetic monopoles.

However, with the closure of the KGF mines, these underground cosmic ray experiments came to an end in the early 1990s, much to the disappointment of many Indian particle physicists. It was the atmospheric neutrinos that later led to the Nobel Prize-winning discovery by Japanese scientists—who in fact, started later—that neutrinos have mass and they exhibit the interesting phenonmenon called neutrino oscillation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mambillikalathil_Govind_Kumar_Menon

Professor M.G.K. Menon is presently the Dr. Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor of the Indian Space Research Organization. Formerly Chairman, Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is Chairman, Board of Governors of the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad; President of Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta; Chairman Raman Research Institute Trust, Bangalore; and Member of the Council of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay.

Prof. Menon born in 1928, took his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, UK in 1953. He has a large number of Honorary doctorates from universities in India and abroad.

Prof. Menon is a Fellow of all the three Science Academies in India; and has been President of each one of them. He was President of the Indian Science Congress Association (1981-82). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, London; (1970) Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Honorary Member of the Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the world’s largest professional Engineering Society; Member of the Pontificlal Academy of Sciences, Rome; Honorary Fellow of The Institute of Physics UK (1997); a Founding Fellow (and initially Vice President) of the Third World Academy of Sciences. He was President of the International Council of Scientific Unions (1988-93).

Prof. Menon has been a recipient of many awards, including the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award for Physical Sciences (1960) of CSIR; CV Raman Medal of the Indian National Science Academy (1985); the first Sir Asutosh Mookerjee Gold Medal (1988) of Indian Science Congress Association; “Health for All” Medal of WHO; Abdus Salam Medal of Third World Academy of Sciences (1997); Blackett Memorial Lecture (Royal Society, London 1987). "Shatabdi Puraskar" of the Indian Science Congress Association, (1999) for Overall Contribution to the Development of Science.

Research Achievements :

1. Nuclear emulsion techniques, particularly leading to the use of large stripped emulsion stacks of volume upto 15 litres in 1954, and development of precision measurement techniques.

2. Elucidation of the properties of the strange particles; and being significantly responsible for establishing the Kπ2, Kμ3, and Kμ2 decay modes of K-mesons.

3. Cosmic ray studies near the geomagnetic equator at high altitudes; and particularly the development of the technique of flying plastic balloons of volume several million cu. ft with level flights over 100,000 feet as a dependable facility for high altitude research in India. (cosmic rays, x-ray & gamma ray astronomy etc)

4. Deep underground studies in India relating to muons, neutrinos, weak interactions and nucleon decay; this included establishing the feasibility of experiments on neutrino-induced interactions and related new phenomena at great depths underground; first observations and analysis of natural neutrino interactions and observations of Kolar events; and the first major dedicated experiment in the world to look for nucleon decay with life times greater than 1030 years, with important observations on nucleon decay candidate events, limits on magnetic monopoles etc.

Prof. Menon has been Director of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay; (1966-1975) Chairman Indian Space Research Organisation; Chairman, Commission for Additional Sources of Energy; Secretary to the Government of India for 12 years (Electronics, Science & Technology, Defence Research, Environment) (1971-1982); Director General of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research and of Defence Research and Development Organisation. He was until recently MN Saha Distinguished Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India

For 8 years (1982-1989) he was Member of the Planning Commission with the rank of Minister of State. He has been Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and Chairman of the Science Advisory Committee to the Cabinet. He was Minister for Science & Technology in the Government of India and Vice President, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR). He was a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) during 1990-96.

Prof. Menon has received from the President of India: Padma Shri in 1961; Padma Bhushan in 1968; and Padma Vibhushan in 1985.

Prof. Menon has been Chairman of Bharat Electronics Limited; Chairman, Bharat Dynamics Ltd. (Missiles); Member (8 years) and Chairman (2 years) of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Committee on Application of Science and Technology; Member, Board of Governors of the International Development Research Centre, Canada; Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the UN Conference on Science & Technology for Development (Vienna, 1979); Member, Governing Council, UN University, Tokyo. He was Co Chairman of the National Task Force on Information Technology and Software Development of the Government of India (1998-99).

He is presently a Member of the Board of Directors of Escorts Limited and Indfos Industries Limited; and Chairman, Board of Governors, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; and was Chairman and is now a Member of the Board of the Institute for Advanced Studies (UNU) Tokyo.

 http://www.indianscience.org/scholors/t_ed_menon_cv.shtml

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