Mumbai, May 23: Prahlad Chunnilal Vaidya was born on May 23, 1918, in a small village called Shahpur in Gujarat’s Junagadh district. Tragically, he lost his parents at a young age. His father passed away when he was just in the ninth grade, in 1931.
Despite facing numerous challenges and financial hardships, Vaidya completed his schooling and earned a first-class degree in Mathematics and Physics from the Royal Institute of Science in Mumbai.
In 1937, a lecture by renowned physicist Professor Vishnu Vasudev Narlikar at Bombay University sparked Vaidya’s curiosity. He discovered a significant flaw in Einstein’s theory of general relativity. At that time, it was believed that while the gravitational pull of a stationary body could be measured, defining the gravitational field of a star that continuously emits light and energy was mathematically impossible.
In 1942, amidst the ‘Quit India Movement’ and Mahatma Gandhi’s 21-day fast in jail, Vaidya embarked on his historic journey to Kashi (Banaras Hindu University). Despite the national turmoil, 24-year-old Vaidya conceived an extraordinary idea about space-time geometry. He theorized that since a star continuously emits light, its surrounding area cannot be considered a vacuum; particles moving at the speed of light must exist there. Based on this physical truth, he solved the mathematical equation that the world now recognizes as the ‘Vaidya Metric’ in just one week.
Professor PC Vaidya was not just a researcher confined to laboratories. He collaborated with Homi Jehangir Bhabha at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) but preferred teaching in the rural areas of Vallabh Vidyanagar, away from Mumbai’s hustle and bustle.
He later became the Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat University. Stories of his simplicity as Vice-Chancellor are still shared today. He never used a government car for personal errands. On his retirement day, he handed over the office keys and rode home on his old bicycle. His office always featured a large blackboard, inviting students and researchers to discuss mathematical equations directly with him.
Vaidya believed that the benefits of science and mathematics should not be confined to university classrooms but should reach children at the grassroots level. With this vision, he founded the Gujarat Mathematics Mandal in 1963, organizing conferences in the most backward rural areas of Gujarat to provide modern mathematics training to primary teachers.
He also initiated the quarterly magazine ‘Suganditam’ in Gujarati, which continues to be published successfully, helping to dispel children’s fear of mathematics.
Vaidya lived by Gandhian values, choosing to work in local colleges in Gujarat over the glamorous research centers of major cities. He was honored with the Srinivasa Ramanujan Gold Medal.
PC Vaidya passed away on March 12, 2010.
– V.K.U./D.S.C.
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