JAMES P. ALLISON

James Patrick Allison was born in Alice, Texas, U.S.A., in 1948. He obtained his BS in Microbiology in 1969, and later in 1973, his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the University of Texas (UT), Austin, TX, USA. He did his postgraduate fellowship in Molecular Immunology at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation. Afterwards, he served in several reputable universities and Hospitals all over the US as professor, director, chair and head of Molecular and Immunology Departments or Cancer. Since 2012, he has been a Professor at the Department of Immunology at MD Anderson, Vivian L. Smith Distinguished Chair in Immunology, Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Chair of the Department of Immunology, Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform and Deputy Director of the David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston.

Professor Allison is a well renowned scientist who has pioneered the concept of immunotherapy blockade by showing that antibody-mediated suppression of the T-Cell inhibitory molecule CTLA-4 can promote tumor rejection which lead to a groundbreaking method of treatment that is the standard of care in the clinic and is saving lives around the world. His seminal work in developing an antagonistic anti-CTLA-4 antibody has led to effectively opening up the field of “immune checkpoint therapy” and the effective treatment of different types of cancer with this methodology.

He published over 250 highly cited articles, with a total ISI (Google Scholar) citations of 40,796 (56,683) and an H-index of 102 (117). He is a member of the editorial board of several scientific journals and has participated in various conferences and exhibitions in his field.

Professor Allison recivied over 60 awards and honors he has received including the Dana Foundation Award in Human Immunology Research, Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award and Canada Gairdner International Award.

Professor James P. Allison, has been awarded the 2018 King Faisal Prize in Medicine for his outstanding contribution to the development of the field of immunotherapy for cancer. He identification of CTLA-4 as an inhibitory receptor of T-cells and pioneering the development of immune checkpoint inhibitors for the treatment of a range of cancers.

He, along with Tasuku Honjo, was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2018 for their discovery of Cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.

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LARRY PAGE

Lawrence Edward Page, more popularly known as Larry Page, is a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Google, the largest internet company in the world. Page was born in March 1973 in Michigan to computer scientists Carl and Gloria Page. Carl Page earned his Ph.D. in computer science in 1965 when computer technology was still in its infancy, whereas Gloria Page taught at Michigan State University. Page was raised without any specific religious beliefs. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer engineering with honors from the University of Michigan, and his Master of Science in computer science from Stanford University.

Because Page’s parents were one of the earliest computer scientists, he was exposed to computer gadgetry and information from a very early age. This also piqued his interest in the subject very early on. He would often take machines and gadgets apart to see how they operated. After earning both his Bachelors and Masters in computer science, Page decided to enroll in the Ph.D. program at Stanford University. Here, he thrived under the mentorship of his supervisor Terry Winograd. He also met his future business partner, Sergey Brin. They originally met during orientation, where Brin (who had already been in the program for two years) had offered to show new students around, one of whom was Page.

For his dissertation, Page wanted to explore the World Wide Web, still a new phenomenon at that time. More specifically, he wanted to understand its mathematical properties and find out which and how many web pages link to a specific page. A combined research project by Page and Brin titled “Backrub” led to the development of an algorithm called “PageRank”. The duo realized that using this algorithm they could develop a search engine much more powerful than any that were present at the time. The original version of their search engine is still available on the Stanford University website.

Page and Brin registered the domain name Google.com in 1997. After applying to family and friends for loans, the duo managed to raise $1 million and officially incorporated their business as “Google, Inc” in 1998. The name Google is based on the term “googol” which is a very large number written as 1 followed by a hundred zeros. The company grew from a small start up in a friend’s apartment in Menlo Park, to a multi storey complex in Mountain View, California known as “Googleplex”. Google has time and again been named one of the best companies to work for. When it went public in 2004, Page and Brin became billionaires overnight. They initially ran Google as co-presidents, until 2001 when Eric Schmidt took over as CEO. In 2011, however, Page went back to being the CEO, while Schmidt assumed an executive management position. The founders still own a chunk of shares but their compensation is officially $1 per year, which ties their compensation directly to the company’s performance.

Page is passionate about environmental causes, as evidenced by the launch of “google.org” – the charitable arm of Google. The company invests in renewable energy and development of hybrid cars. Page has won numerous awards and honors including an honorary doctorate from the University of Michigan, being elected as a fellow of the Marconi Foundation at Columbia University and being listed as one of the top 100 innovators in the world by the MIT Technology Review TR100. Page is married to a research scientist Lucinda Southworth, and the couple have two children. His current net worth is estimated to be US $48.8 billion.

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SERGEY BRIN

American  computer scientist and entrepreneur Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin is the co-founder of Google, the largest internet company in the world. Brin was born in Russia in 1973 and his family suffered from financial trouble before arriving in America. They moved to the US when he was six years old to avoid the unfair persecution of Jews in Russia. Brin’s father wanted to be an astronomer but ended up as professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland (Sergey Brin’s alma mater) and his mother is a researcher at a NASA Space Center.

After graduating from University of Maryland with honors in 1993, Brin began his graduate studies at Stanford in the field of computer science on a graduate fellowship he received from the National Science Foundation. Brin met Larry Page, the co-founder of their future company, during the orientation at Stanford. After a while they became close friends, especially since they were able to intellectually challenge each other.

Brin’s area of interest was data mining and together with page, he co-authored a paper entitled “The Anatomy of a Large Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine“. After putting their heads together, they began working on their theoretical project in earnest and bought a number of low priced computers which they would keep in their dormitory rooms. Using these computers, they began to build a search engine which quickly surpassed even Stanford’s computer search system. After working together for a while, in 1998 the pair decided to put their PhDs on hold in order to take their extraordinary idea to market.

At that time they had no money for product development or establishing a company, so they borrowed from friends, family and professors. With the money they had collected, they rented out a garage in Menlo Park to set up their headquarters and bought some servers to begin working. They were in the process of filing the paperwork to incorporate their company but as yet their company had not been formally established. With another $100,000 from Andy Bechtolsheim (the co-founder of Sun Microsystems) the duo officially incorporated their company as “Google, Inc” which was named after the mathematical term “googol”.

Ever since the incorporation of his company in 1998, Brin and Page have had unprecedented global success. Google Inc’s motto is Brin and Page’s combined vision and that is to make information universally accessible to everyone. Their contribution to enhancing the spread of global knowledge has been so great, that “The Economist” magazine even compared it to the modern equivalent of the invention of the mechanical printing press by Johannes Gutenberg. Google, Inc is now the largest Internet company in the world and Brin and Page own 16% of it.

In 2007, Sergey Brin married a biotech analyst named Anne Wojcicki. Brin’s wife is actively interested in spreading health information and the couple co-founded a company named “23andMe” that is devoted to research about the human genome project. They have a son (born 2008) and a daughter (born 2011) but the couple separated in 2013. Brin’s mother is suffering from Parkinson’s disease and is being treated at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, to which Brin himself has made a donation. Brin and Page have won numerous awards and honors, including being named the fifth most powerful people in the world by Forbes magazine in 2009. As of March 2018, Brin is the 13th richest person in the world with a personal wealth of US $47.5 billion.

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JACK MA

Jack Ma is the founder of the E-commerce giant Ali baba and is a stakeholder at Alipay, its sister company which is an e-payment portal. He is now officially the richest man in China with an estimatedJack Ma is the founder of the E-commerce giant Alibaba and is a stakeholder at Alipay, its sister company which is an e-payment portal. He is now officially the richest man in China with an estimated net worth of $25 Billion, on the back of the recent world record $150 Billion IPO filing of his company. Given all of this, Jack Ma only holds a 7.8% stake in Alibaba and a 50% stake in Alipay. Alibaba and Jack Ma, although are not household names out of China, you must know that Alibaba is worth more than Facebook, and processes goods more than eBay and Amazon combined!

This might be beginning to seem like the story of an arrogant and rich billionaire who hasn’t seen the dark. But don’t be mistaken by the numbers that you see above, they can fool anyone. Although as simple as it may sound, Jack Ma has had it hard in his life to get to where he is today. A true rags-to-riches story and definitely a one which will inspire you even in your darkest days.

Jack Ma Childhood

Jack Ma is one of those self-made billionaires with humble beginnings. Jack Ma was born in Hangzhou, located in the south-eastern part of China. He was born and raised along with an elder brother and a younger sister during the rise of communist China and its isolation from the Western regions. His parents were traditional Musicians-Storytellers and they didn’t make enough to be even considered as middle class during those days.

Former US president Richard Nixon’s visit to Hangzhou in 1972 improved the situation of tourism in his home-town and Jack wanted to make the most of this opportunity. Jack always wanted to learn English as a kid and he spent his early mornings riding on his bike to a nearby park, giving English tours to foreigners for free. It was then he met a foreign girl who gave him the nickname ‘Jack’ for his name was hard to spell for her.

Jack, after graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in English, worked as an English teacher at Hangzhou Dianzi University with a pay of $12 a month! Now here comes the part where it gets more interesting, even before he has received that degree and became an English teacher.

Rejected, But Not a Failure.

Jack Ma as an extremely lucky bloke who just became a billionaire in a snap. But it is safe to know that Rejections are synonymous with Jack Ma. You wouldn’t believe the number of times this man has been rejected and failed.

In his early childhood, Jack Ma Failed in his Primary School examinations, not once, but Twice!  He Failed Thrice during his Middle School exams. When applying to universities after his High school, Jack failed the entrance exams thrice, before finally joining Hangzhou Normal University. He even applied and wrote to Harvard University ten times about being admitted – and got rejected each time. This was only during his education!

During and after his Bachelor’s degree Jack tried and failed to get a job at a multitude of places. After spending three years to get into a University, Jack failed to land a job after applying to them 30 times! He recollects in his interview, “When KFC came to China, 24 people went for the job.  Twenty-three people were accepted.  I was the only guy who wasn’t.” He also one of the 5 applicants to a job in Police force and was the only one getting rejected after being told, “No, you’re no good.”

Also, on his Entrepreneurial undertakings, Jack Ma went on to fail on two of his initial ventures. But that didn’t stop him in any way of dreaming bigger.

Down, but not Out!

In one of his interviews, when asked about his rejections, this is what he had to say, “Well, I think we have to get used to it.  We’re not that good.” Overcoming the pain of rejections and treating rejections as opportunities to learn and grow was what Jack Ma made of it.

After finally coming to terms with all of his rejections and failures, Jack Ma visited US in 1995, for a Government undertaking project related to the building of highways. It was then that Jack Ma was first introduced to the Internet and Computers. Computers were pretty rare in China then, given the high costs associated with them and Internet or E-mails were non-existent. The first word he searched on the Mosaic browser was ‘Beer’, and it popped out results from different countries, but signs of China anywhere. He then searched ‘China’ and not a single result popped out! He decided it was time for China and its people to get on the Internet.

Finally, after persuading 17 of his other friends to invest and join him in his new e-commerce startup – Alibaba, the company began from his apartment. Initially, Alibaba didn’t had a single penny in investment from outside investors, but they later raised $20 Millio from SoftBank and another $5 Million from Goldman Sachs in 1999. Building trust among the people of China that an online system of payment and package transfers is safe was the biggest challenge Jack Ma and Alibaba faced, a challenge that Jack will cherish for his lifetime.

Having started his first successful company at the age of 31 and even after never having written a single line of code or selling something to anyone, Jack Ma runs one of the biggest E-commerce networks in the world. The company went on to grow rapidly, expanding all across the world, quickly growing out of its China shell. Only second to Walmart now in terms of sales per year, Alibaba has become the E-commerce giant that Jack Ma has envisioned for it. on the back of the recent world record $150 Billion IPO filing of his company. Given all of this, Jack Ma only holds a 7.8% stake in Alibaba and a 50% stake in Alipay. Alibaba and Jack Ma, although are not household names out of China, you must know that Alibaba is worth more than Facebook, and processes goods more than eBay and Amazon combined!

This might be beginning to seem like the story of an arrogant and rich billionaire who hasn’t seen the dark. But don’t be mistaken by the numbers that you see above, they can fool anyone. Although as simple as it may sound, Jack Ma has had it hard in his life to get to where he is today. A true rags-to-riches story and definitely a one which will inspire you even in your darkest days.

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CHANDRA KUMAR NARANBHAI PATEL

C. Kumar N. Patel was born in Baramati, India on 2 July 1938. He received the B.E. from the College of Engineering in Poona, India and the M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1959 and 1961, respectively.

Patel joined the Bell Laboratories in 1961. He is currently Executive Director, Research, Materials Science, Engineering and Academic Affairs Division at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ.

Patel's discovery, in 1963, of the laser action on the vibrational-rotational transitions of carbon dioxide and his invention, in 1964, of efficient vibrational energy transfer between molecules, led to his series of experiments which demonstrated that the carbon dioxide laser was capable of very high cw and pulsed power output at very high conversion efficiencies. No other laser has made a greater impact on society.

In 1966, Patel began pioneering studies which created a new field of infrared nonlinear optics which led to his 1969 invention of the spin-flip Raman laser, a class of tunable infrared lasers and the first tunable Raman laser in any wavelength region. Using this laser, he carried out very high resolution spectroscopy of both ground and vibrationally-excited states of molecular gases, resulting in his contribution to the problem of atmospheric pollution detection. In 1970, he developed a tunable laser opto-acoustic measurement technique for extremely small concentrations of pollutant gases. In 1973, he carried out the first measurements of the temporal variation of concentration of nitric oxide in the stratosphere, which provided crucial data bearing on the problem of ozone depletion by man-made nitrogen oxide emission from sources such as the SST. His opto-acoustic spectroscopy studies of cryogenic liquids and solids, begun in 1980, are providing crucial data in understanding these materials and have culminated in the first observations of high vibrational over-tone absorption of molecular hydrogen in solid hydrogen. Patel's current research interests include spectroscopy of highly transparent liquids and solids, and surgical and medical applications of carbon dioxide lasers.

Patel has received numerous awards, including The Optical Society of America's Adolph Lomb Medal (1966); Coblentz Prize (American Chemical Society, 1974); Association of Indians in America's Honor Award (1975); IEEE Lamme Medal (1976); National Academy of Engineering's Zworykin Award (1976); OSA Townes Medal (1982); New Jersey Governor's Thomas Alva Edison Science Award (1987); Hon. D.Sc, New Jersey Institute of Technology (1988); George E. Pake Prize of the American Physical Society (1988); OSA Frederic Ives Medal (1989). He received the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1989, "For fundamental contributions to quantum electronics, including the carbon dioxide laser and the spin-flip Raman laser."

Patel is a Fellow of the IEEE, the American Physical Society, the Optical Society of America, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association for Advancement of Arts and Sciences, the Laser Institute of America, and the American Society of Laser Medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science.

Patel and his wife Shela, a Graduate Advisor at Kean College, NJ, have two daughters: Neela, a second year Ph.D. student in Molecular Biology at UCLA; and Meena, a Freshman at Claremont-McKenna College. His interests include tennis, windsurfing, and gourmet cooking.

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NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, and science communicator. Since 1996, he has been the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The center is part of the American Museum of Natural History, where Tyson founded the Department of Astrophysics in 1997 and has been a research associate in the department since 2003. Born and raised in New York City, Tyson became interested in astronomy at the age of nine after a visit to the Hayden Planetarium. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science, where he was editor-in-chief of the Physical Science Journal, he completed a bachelor's degree in physics at Harvard University in 1980. After receiving a master's degree in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, he earned his master's (1989) and doctorate (1991) in astrophysics at Columbia University. For the next three years, he was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University. In 1994, he joined the Hayden Planetarium as a staff scientist and the Princeton faculty as a visiting research scientist and lecturer. In 1996, he became director of the planetarium and oversaw its $210-million reconstruction project, which was completed in 2000. From 1995 to 2005, Tyson wrote monthly essays in the "Universe" column for Natural History magazine, some of which were published in his book Death by Black Hole (2007). During the same period, he wrote a monthly column in Star Date magazine, answering questions about the universe under the pen name "Merlin". Material from the column appeared in his books Merlin's Tour of the Universe (1998) and Just Visiting This Planet (1998). Tyson served on a 2001 government commission on the future of the U.S. aerospace industry, and on the 2004 Moon, Mars and Beyond commission. He was awarded the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in the same year. From 2006 to 2011, he hosted the television show NOVA ScienceNow on PBS. Since 2009, Tyson hosted the weekly podcast StarTalk. A spin-off, also called StarTalk, began airing on National Geographic in 2015. In 2014, he hosted the television series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, a successor to Carl Sagan's 1980 series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences awarded Tyson the Public Welfare Medal in 2015 for his "extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science".

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WARREN BUFFETT

Warren Buffett, in full Warren Edward Buffett, (born August 30, 1930, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.), American businessman and philanthropist, widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century, having defied prevailing investment trends to amass a personal fortune of more than $60 billion.

Known as the “Oracle of Omaha,” Buffett was the son of U.S. Rep. Howard Homan Buffett from Nebraska. After graduating from the University of Nebraska (B.S., 1950), he studied with Benjamin Graham at the Columbia University School of Business (M.S., 1951). In 1956 Buffett returned to Omaha and in 1965 took majority control of the textile manufacturer Berkshire Hathaway Inc., turning it into his primary investment vehicle. From the 1960s through the ’90s the major stock averages rose by roughly 11 percent annually, but Berkshire Hathaway’s publicly traded shares gained about 28 percent per year. Though Buffett’s success with Berkshire Hathaway made him one of the world’s wealthiest men, he eschewed lavish spending and criticized governmental policies and taxation that favoured the rich over the middle or lower classes.

In June 2006 Buffett announced that he planned to donate more than 80 percent of his wealth to a handful of private charitable foundations. The main recipient was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—created by Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife—which focused on issues of world health and education. Gates and Buffett had maintained a close friendship since the early 1990s, and the foundation was slated to receive Buffett’s funds in increments that would eventually raise its assets to an estimated $60 billion. The other organizations receiving donations were those run by Buffett’s three children and the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late wife, which focused on women’s reproductive rights and funded college scholarship programs.

During the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007–08, Buffett made a number of deals that, though questioned at the time, proved highly profitable. In September 2008 he invested $5 billion in the U.S.-based bank holding company Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and the following month Berkshire Hathaway purchased $3 billion in General Electric Company (GE) preferred stock. In November 2009 Buffett announced that Berkshire was buying the railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation for about $26 billion; the investment group already owned approximately 23 percent of the railroad. In 2011 Buffett was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

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BIRBAL SAHNI

Birbal Sahni was an Indian palaeobotanist who founded the Institute of Palaeobotany at Lucknow, which was later renamed as Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany after his death. He was a pioneer in palaeobotanical research in India and was also a geologist who took an interest in archaeology. Palaeobotany is the study of fossil plants, and his interest in the subject stemmed from his childhood fascination with plants, shells, and stones. Born in late 19th century India, he was a bright and curious child who loved to explore and examine his surroundings. He grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment where his parents ensured that he received the best education possible. After attending the Government College at Lahore where he studied botany under S. R. Kashyap, he moved to England to further his education. After earning his doctorate from the University of London in 1919, he briefly worked in Germany before returning to India. Soon he became the Head of the Botany Department of the Lucknow University and proved to be an excellent teacher with a great passion for palaeobotany. Soon he made the department an active centre for palaeobotanical research and also inspired his students to venture into the field. The establishment of the Institute of Palaeobotany was the culmination of his years of hard work though he unfortunately passed away just a week after the foundation stone laying ceremony.

EARLY LIFE

Birbal Sahni was born on 14 November 1891 as the second son of Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni and Shrimati Ishwar Devi in Bhera, Shahpur District, West Punjab. His father was a patriot and social reformer who was active in India’s struggle for independence. An educator, he eventually became a Professor of Chemistry in the Lahore Government College.

Birbal’s childhood home was often visited by the likes of Motilal Nehru, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Sarojini Naidu, and Madan Mohan Malaviya which ensured that the young boy grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment.

He received his early education from the Mission and Central Model schools. Then he went to study at the Government College University, Lahore, where his father worked, before moving on to the Punjab University from where he graduated in 1911.

He was a brilliant student, and one of his mentors, S. R. Kashyap, had instilled in him a deep love for botany and motivated him to pursue his interest in the field. Thus Birbal moved to England for his higher studies.

He studied at the Emmanuel College at Cambridge and obtained a first class in Part I of the Natural Sciences Tripos in 1913 and completed Part II of the Tripos in 1915. At around the same time he also received his B.Sc. degree from London University.

He found a mentor in his teacher Sir Albert Charles Seward under whom he started doing his research on palaeobotany. Along with him, he worked on the study of Indian Gondwana Plants, the findings of which were published in the book, ‘Indian Gondwana Plants: A Revision’ in 1920. Meanwhile he was awarded his D.Sc degree by the University of London in 1919.

CAREER

During his stint in England Sahni joined Professor Seward to work on a Revision of Indian Gondwana plants (1920, Palaeontologica Indica). In 1919 he briefly worked in Munich with the German plant morphologist Karl Ritter von Goebel. In 1920 he married Savitri Suri, daughter of Sunder Das Suri an Inspector of Schools in Punjab. Savitri took an interest in his work and was a constant companion.Sahni returned to India and served as Professor of Botany at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and Punjab Universityo for about a year. He was appointed the first Professor and Head of the Botany Department of the Lucknow University in 1921, a position he retained until his death. The University of Cambridge recognised his researches by the award of the degree of Sc. D. in 1929. In 1932 Palaeontologica Indica included his account of the Bennettitalean plant that he named Williamsonia sewardi, and another description of a new type of petrified wood, Homoxylon, bearing resemblance to the wood of a living homoxylous angiosperm, but from the Jurassic age.During the following years he not only continued his investigations but collected around him a group of devoted students from all parts of the country and built up a reputation for the University which soon became the first Center for botanical and palaeobotanical investigations in India. Sahni maintained close relations with researchers around the globe, being a friend of Chester A. Arnold, noted American paleobotanist who later served his year in residence from 1958–1959 at the institute He was a founder of The Paleobotanical Society which established the Institute of Palaeobotany on 10 September 1946 which initially functioned in the Botany Department of Lucknow University but later moved to its present premises at 53 University Road, Lucknow in 1949. On 3 April 1949 the Prime Minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the new building of the Institute. A week later, on 10 April 1949, Sahni succumbed to a heart attack.

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Sahni was recognised by several academies and institutions in India and abroad for his research. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) in 1936, the highest British scientific honour, awarded for the first time to an Indian botanist. He was elected Vice-President, Palaeobotany section, of the 5th and 6th International Botanical Congresses of 1930 and 1935, respectively; General President of the Indian Science Congress for 1940; President, National Academy of Sciences, India, 1937–1939 and 1943–1944. In 1948 he was elected an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Another high honour which came to him was his election as an Honorary President of the International Botanical Congress, Stockholm in 1950. For his work in numismatics he received the Nelson Wright Medal in 1945.

Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Minister of Education in 1947 offered the post of Secretary to the Ministry of Education to Sahni. This he reluctantly accepted.

The Birbal Sahni Gold Medal for students of botany was instituted in his memory. A bust of Sahni is placed in the Geological Survey of India in Calcutta.

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MICHIO KAKU

Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist at the City College of New York, a best-selling author, and a well-known popularizer of science. He’s the co-founder of string field theory (a branch of string theory) and continues Einstein’s search to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into one unified theory.

He has appeared frequently on television, written for popular science publications such as Discover, Wired, and New Scientist, been featured in documentaries such as Me & Isaac Newton, and hosted many of his own documentaries. 

His books include The Future of the Mind (2014), Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (2012), Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration of the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel (2008), Parallel Worlds (2006), Einstein’s Cosmos (2005), Visions (1999), Beyond Einstein (1995), and Hyperspace (1994), in addition to several Ph.D.-level textbooks.

EARLY LIFE

Physicist Michio Kaku was born on January 24, 1947, in San Jose, California. His parents were both of Tibetan descent, and his grandfather immigrated to the United States for work in the cleanup efforts following the devastating 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.

Kaku first became attracted to science as a young child, and while a student at Cubberly High School in Palo Alto, he famously built an atom smasher in his parents' garage.

Kaku eventually landed at Harvard University, where he graduated first in his physics class in 1968. From there it was on to the University of California at Berkeley, where he worked at the Berkeley Radiation Lab and earned his Ph.D. in 1972.

The following year Kaku lectured at Princeton, but not long after, the Army drafted him. He was trained as an infantryman but spared combat when the Vietnam War ended shortly before he was scheduled for deployment.

ACADEMIC CAREER AND PUBLICATIONS

Kaku has expertise in several fields such as hadronic physics, supersymmetry, supergravity, superstring theory, and quantum physics among others. His knowledge on these topics has been subject of more than 70 publications in different journals covering physics-related subjects such as Physics Review.

Michio Kaku is known as a popularizer of science, and he has authored several popular science textbooks. His first book was released in 1994 – Hyperspace, followed by Beyond Einstein which he wrote with Jennifer Thompson a year later. In 1998, he published Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century, then two books in 2004: Einstein’s Cosmos and Parallel Worlds. His most recent works include Physics of the Impossible (2008), Physics of the Future (2011), and The Future of the Mind (2015).

All of these publications have sparked a great interest in the minds of scholars and curious minds alike who are interested in the realm of theoretical physics and other related disciplines given the futurist vision that Michio Kaku believes in.

Michio Kaku’s publications reflect his involvement in the ongoing search for understanding and unifying the forces of nature into just one theory. He continues his works based on Einstein’s earlier findings, and Michio Kaku is known as one of the founders of string field theory. His book Hyperspace was a great best seller and was voted as one of the top science books by both The Washington Post and The New York Times in the same year.

THE POPULARIZER OF SCIENCE

This is a commonly heard phrase whenever Michio Kaku’s name is mentioned, and not without good reason. Apart from comprehensive publications of both books and journal articles, he has a known presence in many different forms of media.

He has made appearances on several notable television channels such as BBC, Discovery, ABC, CNN, and the Science Channel just to name a few. Apart from his publications in Physics Review, his works and articles are also available to the public through popular science publications such as Wired, New Scientist, and Discover.

Some of his more recent media exposure includes the History Channel’s The Universe; BBC’s Time; where he went through an extraordinary exploration of time; and BBC’s Vision of the Future, where he explored today’s science as well as that of the future.

On a weekly basis, Michio Kaku can be heard on radio programs which are broadcasted all over the USA. He hosts Science Fantastic and Explorations in Science. Apart from these weekly radio programs, his talks about physics and his studies can be seen in several websites dedicated to his work, and on YouTube channels.

He has also been part of documentaries such as Obsessed and Scientific which discusses the possibility of time travel, ABC’s UFOs: Seeing is Believing, and he was one of the scientists who were featured in Me and Isaac Newton. For BBC, he has hosted the three-hour documentary Visions of the Future. In 2009 when he hosted a weekly TV series at the Science Channel called Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible. One of his more interesting thoughts has been featured on Discovery Channel’s Alien Planet where he discussed the possible future of interstellar exploration.

His presence in different media and his skill in communicating complex theories in easier to understand language has made him an influential popularizer of science.

Kaku is a father to two daughters and is married to Shizue Kaku. His favorite songs include the Star Wars Theme as well as Star Trek’s Next Generation Theme, both in line with his interest in physics and interstellar matters of science.

BOOKSEdit

Kaku is the author of various popular science books:

• Beyond Einstein: The Cosmic Quest for the Theory of the Universe (with Jennifer Thompson) (1987)
• Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension (1994)
• Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century(1998)
• Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time(2004)
• Parallel Worlds: A Journey through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos (2004)
• Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel (2008)
• Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 (2011)
• The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind (2014)
• The Future of Humanity: Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth (2018)

Hyperspace was a bestseller and voted one of the best science books of the year by The New York Times and The Washington Post. Parallel Worlds was a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize for nonfiction in the UK.

RADIOEdit

Kaku is the host of the weekly one-hour radio program Exploration, produced by the Pacifica Foundation's WBAI in New York. Exploration is syndicated to community and independent radio stations and makes previous broadcasts available on the program's website. Kaku defines the show as dealing with the general topics of science, war, peace and the environment.

In April 2006, Kaku began broadcasting Science Fantastic on 90 commercial radio stations in the United States. It is syndicated by Talk Radio Network and now reaches 130 radio stations and America's Talk on XM and remains the only nationally syndicated science radio program. Featured guests include Nobel laureates and top researchers in the fields of string theory, time travel, black holes, gene therapy, aging, space travel, artificial intelligence and SETI. When Kaku is busy filming for television, Science Fantastic goes on hiatus, sometimes for several months. Kaku is also a frequent guest on many programs, where he is outspoken in all areas and issues he considers of importance, such as the program Coast to Coast Am where, on November 30, 2007, he reaffirmed his belief that the existence of extraterrestrial life is a certainty. During the debut of Art Bell's new radio show Dark Matter on September 16, 2013, Bell referred to Kaku as "the next Carl Sagan", referring to Kaku's similar ability to explain complex science so anyone can understand it.

Kaku has appeared on many mainstream talk shows, discussing popular fiction such as Back to the Future, Lost,and the theories behind the time travel these and other fictional entertainment focus on.

TELEVISION AND FILMSEdit

Kaku has appeared in many forms of media and on many programs and networks, including Good Morning America, The Screen Savers, Larry King Live, 60 Minutes, Imus In The Morning, Nightline, 20/20, Naked Science, CNN, ABC News, Conan, CBS News, NBC News, Al Jazeera English, Fox News Channel, The History Channel, , The Science Channel, The Discovery Channel, TLC, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The Colbert Report, The Art Bell Show and its successor, Coast to Coast AM, BBC World News America, The Covino & Rich Show, Head Rush, Late Show with David Letterman, and Real Time with Bill Maher. He was interviewed for two PBS documentaries, The Path to Nuclear Fission: The Story of Lise Meitner and Otto Hahnand Out from the Shadows: The Story of Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, which were produced and directed by his former WBAI radio colleague Rosemarie Reed.

In 1999, Kaku was one of the scientists profiled in the feature-length film Me & Issac Newton, directed by Michael Apted. It played theatrically in the United States, was later broadcast on national TV, and won several film awards.

In 2005, Kaku appeared in the short documentary film Obsessed & Scientific about the possibility of time travel and the people who dream about it. It screened at the Montreal World Film Festival; a feature film expansion is in development talks. Kaku also appeared in the ABC documentary UFOs: Seeing is Believing, in which he suggested that while he believes it is extremely unlikely that extraterrestrials have ever actually visited Earth, we must keep our minds open to the possible existence of civilizations a million years ahead of us in technology, where entirely new avenues of physics open up. He also discussed the future of interstellar exploration and alien life in the Discovery Channel special Alien Planet as one of the multiple speakers who co-hosted the show, and Einstein's Theory of Relativity on The History Channel.

In February 2006, Kaku appeared as presenter in the BBC-TV four-part documentary Time which seeks to explore the mysterious nature of time. Part one of the series concerns personal time, and how we perceive and measure the passing of time. The second in the series deals with cheating time, exploring possibilities of extending the lifespan of organisms. The geological time covered in part three explores the ages of the Earth and the Sun. Part four covers the topics of cosmological time, the beginning of time and the events that occurred at the instant of the big bang.

On January 28, 2007, Kaku hosted the Discovery Channel series 2057. This three-hour program discussed how medicine, the city, and energy could change over the next 50 years.

In 2008, Kaku hosted the three-hour BBC-TV documentary Visions of the Future, on the future of computers, medicine, and quantum physics, and he appeared in several episodes of the History Channel's Universe series.

On December 1, 2009, he began hosting a 12-episode weekly TV series for the Science Channel at 10 pm, called Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, based on his best-selling book. Each 30-minute episode discusses the scientific basis behind imaginative schemes, such as time travel, parallel universes, warp drive, star ships, light sabers, force fields, teleportation, invisibility, death stars, and even superpowers and flying saucers. Each episode includes interviews with the world's top scientists working on prototypes of these technologies, interviews with science fiction fans, clips from science fiction movies, and special effects and computer graphics. Although these inventions are impossible today, the series discusses when these technologies might become feasible in the future.

In 2010, he began to appear in a series on the website Gametrailers.com called Science of Games, discussing the scientific aspects of various popular video games such as Mass Effect 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Kaku is popular in mainstream media because of his knowledge and his accessible approach to presenting complex subjects in science. While his technical writings are confined to theoretical physics, his public speaking and media appearances cover a broad range of topics, from the Kardashev scale to more esoteric subjects such as wormholes and time travel. In January 2007, Kaku visited Oman. While there, he talked at length to select members of that country's decision makers. In an interview with local media, Kaku elaborated on his vision of mankind's future. Kaku considers climate change and terrorism as serious threats in man's evolution from a Type 0 civilization to Type 1 on the Kardashev scale.

He is featured in Symphony of Science's songs, "The Quantum World", " Our Place in the Cosmos", "The Secret of the Stars", and "Monsters of the Cosmos"

On October 11, 2010, Michio Kaku appeared in the BBC program "What Happened Before the Big Bang" (along with Laura Mersini-Houghton, Andrei Linde, Roger Penrose, Lee Smolin, Neil Turok, and other notable cosmologists and physicists), where he propounded his theory of the universe created out of nothing.

Over January 22–25, 2011, Kaku was invited to the fifth annual Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF), held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, next to renowned specialists including the British journalist Nick Pope, the Canadian ufologist Stanton Friedman, and the French astrophysicist Jacques Vallée.

Kaku appears on the DVD and Blu-ray extras of the 2012 version of Total Recall, discussing the technological aspects of the future explored in the film.

WEB SERIESEdit

In 2018, Kaku hosts the web series Next World with Michio Kaku on CuriosityStream.

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