Scientist Ashoke Sen gets Physics highest honour

Allahabad, Aug 2 (ANI): Indian physicist Ashoke Sen on Thursday received the first Fundamental Physics award for his contribution to the 'String Theory'.

The award, started by Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, would ensure that Sen receives three million dollars along with eight scientists from the United States and France.

Interacting with reporters here, Sen wished more Indians would get such prizes.

"I am extremely happy on receiving the award, but hopefully this is not the only time. I mean, India has many other excellent physicists who are working on this, and I am hoping that many more of them will get this prize in future," Sen said.

Giving details of his work on the 'String Theory', Sen said research is still in progress.

"This prize was given for my work in string theory. A string theory is an attempt to unify quantum theory and gravity and certainly the research is not finished yet. A lot of work is still going on, so my work in this was on a specific aspect of string theory which is called dualities and that turned out to be an important aspect of string theory," Sen informed.

Sen added that while it was not possible to practically apply the theory as of now, it explains fundamental laws.

"There are many things which are because of quantum mechanics so it is hard to say what will happen 100 years from now. It is possible that String Theory could be applied, but as of today, we cannot see any practical application. But, it is mainly to understand what are the basic constituents of nature, what are the fundamental laws that drive everything we see around us," he said.

Sen studied at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur and got a doctorate from State University of New York, Stonybrook. (ANI)