Fwd: Two lectures on 30th & 31st July 2014
Pratik Chaudhari
From: Jyotirvidya Parisanstha <jyotirvidya...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jul 27, 2014 at 7:49 PM
Subject: Two lectures on 30th & 31st July 2014
To: JVP google group <jyotirvidya...@googlegroups.com>
Dear all,
Greetings.
On consecutive two days, we have two lectures by two eminent personalities. The details are as follows -
Lecture 1: Public lecture jointly organized by JVP and IUCAA on "Stone inscriptions as sources of astronomical records in South India".
Lecturer: Dr. B. S. Shylaja, Director, Bangalore Association for Science Education, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bangalore
Date: Wednesday, 30 July 2014
Time: 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm
Venue: Tilak Smarak Mandir
Lecture 2: Public lecture organized by IUCAA on "A Universe of Wonder".
Lecturer: Dr. Gordon Squires, Communications & Education lead, Thirty Meter Telescope
Date: Thursday, 31 July 2014
Time: 6.30 pm to 7.30 pm
Venue: Chandrashekhar Auditorium, IUCAA, Pune
Both the lectures are open to all.
Abstracts of two lectures:
Stone inscriptions as sources of astronomical records in South India
Inscriptions on stone are found all over India. They offer a very rich source material for historians, sociologists and anthropologists apart from tradition and culture.
Generally the inscriptions record gifts of land and revenue offered to Brahmins towards maintenance of temples; however there are an equally large number of inscriptions dedicated to war heroes, or those killed for a heroic deed, saints who committed self immolation to attain salvation or women who committed sati.
A very interesting aspect of these inscriptions is the record of time. Usually the gifts are made during eclipses, Sankramanas (transit of sun from one constellation to the next), solstices and yet another event termed Vyatipatha. Over the last two centuries tens of thousands of inscriptions have been dated and the contents have been deciphered. This mammoth work initiated during the colonial period, is being continued by the Archaeological Survey and appended even today. Earlier work is available as volumes of Epigraphia Carnatica and further field work is available in over 100 volumes as Karnataka Inscriptions, Epigraphia Carnatica, South India Inscriptions and Epigraphia Andhrica. Thus it amounts to more than 50000 inscriptions from about 2nd Century AD onwards.
We compile all such data as errors in the timing and try to understand the deviation with the passage of time providing a baseline as wide as 1500 years. The study opened up a new avenue for tracing records of celestial events. It also threw light on many technical terms and the method used for recording the events. Multiple records of events in different locations were available for a handful of records. This will be useful in quantifying the results as well.
A Universe of Wonder
By night, I am an astronomer. I explore the old, cold and distant universe – understanding how galaxies formed billions of years ago and what is the nature of the dark matter and dark energy that fills space. By day, I help share the latest discoveries enabled by NASA space telescopes including Spitzer, Herschel, NuSTAR, WISE, Kepler and more. Everyday my understanding of the universe changes. In this talk, I will share exciting recent discoveries enabled by these ground- and space-based telescopes, with some personal stories of how I helped share them with the world. I will also describe progress towards astronomy’s next-generation observatory, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). TMT is an unprecedented collaboration among astronomy institutes in India, Japan, China, Canada and the United States.
Biography: Gordon K. Squires is an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, working with the Thirty Meter Telescope, as well as NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the Herschel Space Observatory, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, NuSTAR, Kepler, WISE, and other space telescopes with Caltech involvement. His research explores the old, cold and distant universe – understanding how galaxies formed billions of years ago and what is the nature of the dark matter and dark energy that fills space.
Kind regards,
Sagar Gokhale
Secretary, Jyotirvidya Parisanstha.
(9920514394/9422026493)