Internationally known physicist Prof Jogesh Chandra Pati, whose path-breaking contribution towards theory of “grand unification” threw up new fundamental ideas in theoretical physics, on Tuesday said it had answers crucial to the origin of life.
“This theory shed light on elusive properties of the feeblest and the lightest known massive particles-the neutrinos--- and the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry of the universe, which was crucial to the origin of life and our own existence,” Prof Pati said while delivering the first ever Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Memorial Research Oration in Basic Sciences at the SOA University.
Perhaps the most profound consequence of grand unification was the prediction that the lightest observed nuclear particle-the proton-which was known to be extraordinarily stable, must ultimately decay, Prof Pati said.
Prof Pati, presently Professor of Physics at the Stanford National linear Accelerator Centre, Stanford University, USA, spoke on the subject: “Unity in Particle Physics: A Quest for Beauty and Simplicity.” Prof (Dr) Amit Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor of SOA University, presided.
