View the lecture at: https://www.youtube.com/c/IISERMohaliOfficialChannel
Date and Time: 4:00pm, January 9, 2021
Ever since the humans realised the beauty of the skies, they have been fascinated by it. They have used it for time keeping, calendrical, navigational purposes and have uploaded their stories to the skies. Hence the study of the heavens is as old as the arrival of human culture. In the present talk, we will look at the evolution of astronomy from prehistoric period to the present by dividing it into 4 stages - of prehistoric astronomy, astronomy of early settlements, astronomy of civilisation and modern astronomy. We will discuss the salient features of each of these phases and show how it is sensitive to other parameters of the intellectual evolution of the civilisation in the subcontinent.
About the Speaker: Mayank Vahia completed his PhD in Astrophysics from TIFR and worked there till 2018. His early work was on satellite based telescopes. More recently he has been interested in the history of science and astronomy and human evolution. He guided the Astronomy Science Olympiad programmes in India for more than a decade. He is a fellow of several national and international academies. He is on the Governing Council of Deccan College, Pune and has also been an active member of various advisory committees of the National Council of Science Museums. After retirement he started the School of Mathematical Sciences, at the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, a Deemed university in Mumbai.