Vinod Johri

Vinod Johri (10 June 1935 – 10 May 2014) was an In-dian astrophysicist. He was an eminent cosmologist, a re-tired professor of astrophysics at Indian Institute of Tech-nology, Madras and an emeritus professor at LucknowUniversity since 1995. Johri had over 75 research publi-cations and articles published in pioneering journals. Hismajor contributions in cosmological research included'power law inflation, genesis of quintessence fields of darkenergy and phantom cosmologies’. He was the co-authorof the first model of power law inflation in Brans–Dicketheory along with C. Mathiazhagan. He was honoredby Uttar Pradesh Government by Research Award of theCouncil of Science & Technology (CSIR).[1]

Johri spent over 45 years researching in cosmology, act-ing as a research guide and principal investigator of vari-ous research projects of Council of Scientific and Indus-trial Research,[2] Department of Science& Technology[3]and University Grants Commission of India.[4] Johri wasa Commonwealth Fellow, a senior visitor at CambridgeUniversity (UK) and a Fellow of Royal AstronomicalSociety[5] of London. He worked as consultant forUNESCO at United Nations Development Program[6] inIran and as a DAAD Fellow[7] at University of Mainz(Germany), as a visiting scientist at Hansen Lab[8] (Grav-ity Probe B Group) Stanford University (USA) andas an International Scholar at Fine Theoretical PhysicsInstitute[9] at University of Minnesota at Minneapolis(USA). He died in Dallas, USA at the age of 78 due tocomplications arising from Kidney failure.

1 Career

Johri was born in Etah (Uttar Pradesh), India on 10 June1935. His father Dr. Bhairon Prasad Johri graduatedfrom Veterinary College, Patna and worked as LivestockOfficer, Allahabad, India. Johri’s mother, Sarojini Johriwas a home maker.Johri completed his High School at Narain College,[10]Shikohabad, India, with 12th rank in the state merit list.He was awarded First Prize in Chiranjeevi Dhiri SinghProvincial English Debate. He completed his Bache-lor’s in 1953 and Master’s in Applied Mathematics in1956 from Allahabad University scoring high ranks inthe merit list. In 1957 he was appointed as Assis-tant Professor in the Department of Mathematics Alla-habad University,[11] Allahabad. In 1960, Johri was ap-pointed Assistant Professor inMathematics at GorakhpurUniversity,[12] Gorakhpur India, where he was conferred

PhD degree in 1966 on his thesis “Gravitational Waves inBondi Space-Time”.In 1967 Johri was awarded Commonwealth Fellowshipfor Post-Doctorate work at Department of Mathemat-ics and Theoretical Physics,[13] Cambridge University(UK), where he worked in close collaboration on cos-mological problems with Dr.Dennis Sciama and researchscholars FriedrichHehl (Cologne), Fernando de Felice[14](Padova, Italy), George Ellis (Cape Town) and StephenHawking (UK) for his Post Doctorate program. In 1968Johri was appointed Reader inMathematics at GorakhpurUniversity. Between 1970 and 1972, Johri worked asUNESCO consultant to Government of Iran under UnitedNations Development Program at Teheran. Johri waselected a Fellow of Royal Astronomical Society of Lon-don in 1978.Johri accepted the position of Professor of Cosmologyat the Mathematics Department of Indian Institute ofTechnology,[15] Madras (Chennai) in 1980. In additionto teaching and advising PhD students, he introducednew courses on General Relativity and Cosmology. In1984, he discovered the first model of 'power law infla-tion' under Brans–Dicke theory (later on called as 'ex-tended inflation') along with his student C.Mathizhagan.Johri worked on various visiting assignments at NationalUniversity[16] (Kuwait), International Centre for Theo-retical Physics, Trieste (Italy), Copernicus Astronom-ical Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw),National University of Singapore, South West Techni-cal University of Sydney; Australian National Univer-sity, Canberra, Hansen Lab (Gravity Probe BGroup)[17]),Stanford University, Cologne University, InternationalInstitute of Physics and Chemistry Brussels University(hosted by Nobel Laureate Prof. Ilya Prigogine).Johri organized the International Symposium on Cosmol-ogy at Indian Institute of Technology,[18]Madras in 1995.The proceedings of the symposium were published byHadronic Press,[19] Florida (USA) in 1997.In 1995 Professor Johri retired from Indian Institute ofTechnology[20] and joined as CSIR[21] Professor Emer-itus in the Department of Mathematics & Astronomyat Lucknow University,[22] Lucknow (India). In 2001,Johri got interested in dark energy during his visit-ing assignment at Fine Theoretical Physics Institute,[23]University of Minnesota (USA), he gave the theory of'integrated tracking' of Quintessence Fields. His re-search work on 'Genesis of Quintessence'[24] and 'Phan-tom Cosmologies’[25] was published in reputed journals

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2 5 REFERENCES

Physical Review D & Classical and Quantum Gravity.

2 Honors

Johri was a Commonwealth Fellow and a senior visitorto Cambridge University (UK). He was also a residentof Clare College, Cambridge. He was elected a Fel-low of Royal Astronomical Society of London in 1978.Johri was awarded the Royal Society Visiting Fellowshipin 1989 for visiting Department of Applied Mathemat-ics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) Cambridge,[26]Southampton University (UK), Cardiff University andQueen Mary College, London under the DistinguishedScientists Exchange Program of British Council.[27] In1993, Johri was awarded DAAD Fellowship for his visit-ing assignment at Theoretical Physics Institute, JohannesGutenberg University, Mainz(Germany).Johri was honored with a 'Silver Plaque' by Council ofScience & Technology,[28] India for his distinguishedwork on Dark Energy in the year 2006. He was LifeMember of Ganita Parishad[29] and a founding mem-ber of the Indian Association of General Relativity andGravitation.[30]

3 Writings and hobbies

Besides scientific research papers and popular science ar-ticles, Johri wrote several books onMathematical Physicsand Astrophysics. His research monograph Early Uni-verse was published by Hadronic Press (USA) in 1996.Vinod Johri loved to compose verses in Hindi, Urdu andEnglish during his leisure time. His poems won severalpoetry.com awards and have been published in antholo-gies; WHO'S WHO IN INTERNATIONAL POETRY,SOUND OF POETRY, THE BEST POETS AND PO-ETRY OF 2007 AND COLOURS OF THE HEART.

4 Personal life

Johri was married to Aruna (maiden name Kodesia) for54 years. The couple had 2 sons Manoj (Software Ar-chitect, HP), Vivek (IT Manager, UnitedHealth Group)and 2 daughters Manisha (Teacher at Shishya,[31] Chen-nai) and Anvita (Software Development, UnitedHealthGroup).

5 References

[1] “Cst U.P”. Cst U.P. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[2] http://rdpp.csir.res.in/csir_acsir/

[3] “Welcome to Science And Engineering Research Coun-cil”. Serc-dst.org. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[4] ":::Welcome to UGC :::". Ugc.ac.in. 18 June 2004. Re-trieved 21 October 2011.

[5] “The Royal Astronomical Society”. Ras.org.uk. Re-trieved 21 October 2011.

[6] Pooneh Tehrani (19 April 2010). "::::: United NationsInformation Centre, Tehran :::::". Unic-ir.org. Retrieved21 October 2011.

[7] “Home”. Daad.org. 13 November 2010. Retrieved 21October 2011.

[8] Ronald K. Hanson. “The Hanson Group: Home”. Han-son.stanford.edu. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[9] http://www.ftpi.umn.edu/research/

[10] http://naraincollege.com/

[11] http://www.alldunivpio.org/

[12] “Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University,Gorakhpur..A NAAC Accredited B++ University”.Ddugu.edu.in. 16 October 2011. Retrieved 21 October2011.

[13] “DAMTP”. Damtp.cam.ac.uk. 12 April 2011. Retrieved21 October 2011.

[14] “Gaia: People working on Gaia”. Rssd.esa.int. Retrieved21 October 2011.

[15] “IIT Madras Home”. Iitm.ac.in. Retrieved 21 October2011.

[16] “Kuwait University”. Kuniv.edu.kw. Retrieved 21 Octo-ber 2011.

[17] “Gravity Probe B – Media Galleries”. Ein-stein.stanford.edu. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[18] “IIT Madras Home”. Iitm.ac.in. Retrieved 21 October2011.

[19] “Hadronic Press”. Hadronic Press. Retrieved 21 October2011.

[20] “IIT Madras Home”. Iitm.ac.in. Retrieved 21 October2011.

[21] “Cst U.P”. Cst U.P. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[22] “Lucknow University !!!". Lkouniv.ac.in. 9 February2009. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[23] “Home Page – Physics at Minnesota”. Physics.umn.edu.27 May 2011. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[24] “Phys. Rev. D 63, 103504 (2001): Genesis of cosmo-logical tracker fields”. Prd.aps.org. Retrieved 21 October2011.

[25] “Phys. Rev. D 70, 041303 (2004): Phantom cosmolo-gies”. Prd.aps.org. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[26] “DAMTP”. Damtp.cam.ac.uk. 12 April 2011. Retrieved21 October 2011.

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[27] “British Council”. British Council. 25 October 2010. Re-trieved 21 October 2011.

[28] “Cst U.P”. Cst U.P. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[29] “Lucknow University !!!". Lkouniv.ac.in. Retrieved 21October 2011.

[30] "<!- Main page of the site, entry-point -> IAGRG HomePage”. Imsc.res.in. Retrieved 21 October 2011.

[31] http://www.sishya.com/

6 External links• http://www.linkedin.com/pub/vinod-johri/14/176/10

• http://mat.iitm.ac.in/Ret33.html

• http://www.jamia-physics.net/astro/

• http://www.imsc.res.in/~{}iagrg/IagrgSite/Members/current_members.html

• http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/au:+johri/0/1/0/all/0/1

• http://www.scientificcommons.org/vinod_b_johri

• http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/find/books?irn=283720

• http://iaps.academia.edu/RAMBILASMISRA/Papers/229921/MATHEMATICS_AND_MATHEMATICIANS_AT_PRAYAG_ALLAHABAD_

4 7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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