J. C. Bose, 1858-1937

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The Centre for Philosophy and Foundations of Science (CPFS) was established at the initiative of a group of scientists and philosophers working on the foundations of quantum theory. Beginning with the International Workshop on 70 Years of Erwin Schrödinger's Wave Mechanics in December 1996 in New Delhi, this group has met in the winter in New Delhi every year since. The concluding session of the first workshop, chaired by Professor E.C.G. Sudarshan adopted a resolution recommending the creation of the Centre. Participants in this session included Professor Helmut Rauch of the Atominstitut, Vienna, who welcomed the plan and expressed his conviction that with such renowned scientists as resource persons, the Centre would be able to obtain support from international agencies.

Formally registered as a public trust in New Delhi on August 7, 1998, CPFS is managed by a Board of Trustees assisted by a Board of Advisers, consisting of distinguished scientists and philosophers. In its embryonic form, the Centre collaborated in the winter of 1997 with the British Council, to host Professor Roger Penrose. The impressive turn-out at his public lecture helped crystallize the resolve to turn to science as a means of cementing bilateral ties on the part of foreign missions.

In the early days, shunning brick and mortar, talks were often held in the gardens of Delhi's historic monuments, to take advantage of the balmy winter sunshine in an ambience of surpassing beauty. The cooperation of the leading convention centres, the long-established India International Centre and a new entrant in 1998, the India Habitat Centre, offered excellent facilities for seminars and conferences.

From February 1999, CPFS functioned out of office space at S-527 Greater Kailash-II, New Delhi, provided in exchange for hiring Manana Library personnel as support staff. The Director assumed full-time duties from April 2000, the start of the financial year 2000-01, an eventful period during which CPFS began to receive grants from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. A range of activities was carried out, capped by the immensely successful visit of Professor Stephen Hawking to Delhi to deliver the Albert Einstein Lecture in January 2001 as a guest of the Centre. Professor Hawking had a rapt audience of several thousand at the Siri Fort Auditorium, the venue of the lecture, which was exclusively organized by CPFS in partnership with corporate associates, the Taj Group of Hotels, Discovery Channel and Indian Airlines.

With activities in full swing and the concomitant pressure on space, the search for suitable premises was initiated in October 2000. In April 2001 CPFS relocated its registered office to Darshan Sadan, E-36 Panchshila Park, New Delhi 110017. The search for adequate institutional space is under way, with a view to executing long-term plans. It is a matter of no small pride that the Centre has been able to sustain itself in its formative years in the relentless pursuit of its goals, solely with indigenous resources, through the steadfast commitment and unremitting efforts of its core team in Delhi and elsewhere in India.

As a result of its relentless pursuit of its objectives, CPFS has acquired an international reputation as the one and only institution of its kind in Asia and has been privileged to host, up to now, as many as fifteen Nobel Laureates and one Fields Medallist in addition to Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose.

N.B. To obtain further information about the Centre's activities or to authenticate claims of individual involvement or participation, please use the 'Contact Us' form provided in the drop-down menu of the 'Partnership' page.

A caveat: Overwhelmed as we are with material, this website is far from complete and content development proceeds episodically, with occasional glitches such as the one that has just been fixed today June 9, 2010. Viewers are encouraged to visit the site as often as they can, should they wish to be informed of the progress of various activities initiated by CPFS, to all of which we remain committed.

The logo adopted by CPFS is a stylized variant of an Indus Valley symbol, read by Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola as denoting the Indian fig tree ficus indica, which is associated with wisdom. The decipherment of the script is rendered difficult by the brevity of the inscriptions and the absence of a rosetta stone The following link is of interest in this context. http://www.harappa.com/arrow/meluhha-and-agastya.html

The motto adopted comes from the opening stanza of the Nyaya Sutra of Gotama c.100 B.C. 'Through knowledge of reality, the summum bonum is attained'. The Nyaya, a logical tradition of ancient India, was one of six philosophical schools of the Vedic fraternity and usually paired with Vaiseshika, an ancient atomist school, which, surprisingly, finds mention in Nature Milestones May 2010 on Photons under Milestone 1 (p. 55) entitled 'Let there be light'. Quite a distinction, considering that it was not published in Nature and the Milestones make no mention of any modern or contemporary Indian physicist. No Jagadis Chandra Bose, C. V. Raman, Satyendra Nath Bose or E. C. G. Sudarshan.

This site and its contents are copyrighted by CPFS from 1998 in perpetuity (or the legal tenure, whichever is earlier) given its 'irrevocable' status as a public trust.

Roger Penrose, Stephen Hawking, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Nobel Laureate (Physics); Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry), Robert Huber, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry); Rolf Zinkernagel, Nobel Laureate (Medicine or Physiology); Charles Townes, Nobel Laureate (Physics); Gerard 't Hooft, Nobel Laureate (Physics); Torsten Wiesel, Nobel Laureate (Medicine or Physiology); Y.T. Lee, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry); Alan MacDiarmid, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry); Alan Heeger, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry), Douglas Osheroff, Nobel Laureate (Physics); Zhores Alferov, Nobel Laureate (Physics); Anthony Leggett, Nobel Laureate (Physics); Peter Agre, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry); Harold Kroto, Nobel Laureate (Chemistry); Michael Atiyah, Fields Medallist.

Scroll images listing: 2625 BC-2500 BC Pyramids Mycerinos, Kheops (the biggest) and Khephren, 2500 BC Indus Valley dancing girl, 2500 BC Indus Valley male torso, 2500 BC Indus Valley bust, 2500 BC Indus Valley seal, 1500 BC Agamemnon's mask, Mycenae, 1350 BC Akhenaten, 1350 BC Nefertiti, 599 BC Mahavira, 570 BC Lao Tzu, 560 BC Buddha, 2 images, 551 BC Kung Fu Tzu, 469 BC Socrates, 447 BC Parthenon, 427 BC Plato, 427 BC Plato, 384 BC Aristotle (r) with Plato, 287 BC Archimedes, 200 BC Ajanta ... etc

? CPFS asserts its copyright to all audiovisual material and text generated by its activities, some of which are posted on this website and none of which may be used without formal permission, which must be sought from permissions@cpfs.res.in. Other footage is included in the belief that it is in the public domain; where it is not we seek the indulgence of the copyright owners. As no exhaustive record of the sources of the images used has been kept, if you believe that you own rights, please contact webmaster@cpfs.res.in so we may make amends either by discontinuing use or providing acknowledgement.