a letter of recommendation written in 1935, for admission to @Cambridge_Uni
Quiz: (particularly for students of Gujarati history) Who is the man standing between Jawaharlal Nehru & Vikram Sarabhai? [others in the photo: on extreme left, Prof K. R. Rama Nathan, Director, Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad]
A young Vikram Sarabhai and his parents, Sarladevi and Ambalal Sarabhai, along with Tagore; at their residence called ‘The Retreat’ in Ahmedabad.
Vikrambhai, as those who knew him in Gujarat called him, with his guide, C. V. Raman, at the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore, 1940-1945 [i love those cane chairs]
For those of you who know CSC (Community Science Center) in Ahmedabad, this is a special moment. C.V. Raman at the foundation stone laying ceremony, 1968; with Vikram Sarabhai’s mother, Smt. Sarladevi on the left. [seeing this, just realized, C.V.Raman was a pretty tall!]
I had somehow never realized till I saw this photo that these two were contemporaries, far less that these two worlds had somehow met: the anthropologist Margaret Mead and the scientist Vikram Sarabhai at the Delos Symposia, Athens Center of Ekistics
[a remarkable moment] Vikram Sarabhai (left) and M.G.K. Menon on right (Director, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research) greet American astronauts, Neil Armstrong & @TheRealBuzz at TIFR [not sure what date this was on]
history is so unexpected *** Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, inaugurates the 5th Management Conference of ATIRA in 1959 while Vikram Sarabhai hears him speak. (if you know Ahmedabad, you probably know this place)
For those of you (particularly Indians) who have studied Markov Processes and the Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, a memorable photo: a visit by Prof Sydney Chapman to PRL in Ahmedabad where he gave a lecture series, 1947-1948
the experimentalist & the (string) theorist
with Indira Gandhi & Glenn Seaborg, US Atomic Energy Chairman, 1967
with Mrs. Gandhi at the Pugwash Conference in Udaipur, 1964
at the early stages of the site which would go onto become the Kalpakkam Nuclear Power Station/Reactor, with Shri C. R. Ramamurthy and Dr. Brahmprakash
at the selection site of an electronics production facility in Hyderabad
at the TERLS, Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching System which was see dedicated to the United Stations in 1968 by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. The inaugural flight at TERLS was on Nov 21, 1963; soon US, France, & UK began using the facilities.
at the launching station of the Shriharikota Island
as a young graduate student with C. V. Raman and his later supervisor Robert Millikan [anybody remember Millikan's Oil Drop Experiment, which measured the charge on a single electron]
Apollo 11 astronauts who visited TIFR on October 26, 1969 in the foyer of the Bhabha Auditorium: Michael Collins, Homi Sethna, US Ambassador Kenneth Keating, MGK Menon, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, with Vikram Sarabhai.
In January 2019, PM Narendra Modi unveiled a bronze statue to memorialize the historic life of Vikram Sarabhai in presence of his children Kartikeya Sarabhai and Mallika Sarabhai, by the Sabarmati river in Ahmedabad.
