I don’t do research to win Nobel Prize: Prof Sudarshan

Prof EC George Sudarshan is an angry man these days. Last week, when the Nobel Prize for Physics was being handed over to Prof Roy Glauber of Harvard University, Sudarshan, a professor at the department of physics at University of Texas, Austin, could only wonder why he was not in Sweden to receive the prize.

“We should have shared the prize,” Sudarshan told DNA from his Austin residence. “Glauber had built his work upon my work in quantum theory of optical coherence. It is professional thievery.” Sudarshan had published his theory in a 1963 issue of Physical Review Letters, a prestigious science journal. Glauber’s work was in the same issue, but the work for which he was awarded the Nobel came a bit later.

In the complex world of quantum physics, it is now called the “P-representation”, whereas earlier it was called Sudarshan representation and Sudarshan-Glauber representation. In November, petitions were sent by two different sets of people to the Nobel Committee to review this year’s prize. “I can’t think of a reason for not awarding the prize,” says Sudarshan, the man also credited with theorising tachyons — particles that travel faster than the speed of light.

Sudarshan adds: “Glauber’s work was about photon correlations, not on the quantum theory of coherence. His first paper did not formulate the theory. My paper, published in the February 1963 issue did. It is correct to say that he lifted my diagonal representation and called it P-representation in his subsequent paper.”

The Nobel Committee has received the petition, but its official stand is that it does not review its decisions. The proceedings are also classified for 50 years. “Letters sent to the Nobel Committee gives them a chance to correct their errors,” says Sudarshan, but adds, “I don’t think they will review this case. In any case I don’t do research for a Nobel, I do it because I enjoy the process.”

This would seem a case of two scientists publishing similar work at almost the same time like it happened with the discovery of Calculus in the late 17th century when Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Liebniz were at loggerheads. The credit went to Newton as his work was completed first.

“When I lecture about coherence, I only talk about my diagonal representation, and not the P-representation,” says Sudarshan. “This is just like the way I would refer to my sons by the name I gave them.”