May 25 2024 to May 25 2024 6:30 p.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

English, Punjabi and Hindi, with English Subtitles | 2020 | 59 minutes Director and Producer: Jahnavi Phalkey Editor: Tanya Singh Cyclotron is a film about the world’s oldest functional particle accelerator and the people who keep it running today. Operational in 1936 at the University of Rochester, United States, it was built merely three years after the very first cyclotron was built by Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley. The entire set-up in Rochester was dismantled and sent to India in 1967, and is now housed at the Panjab University, Chandigarh. With the cyclotron, the regional university became one of the very few places in India for research and education in nuclear physics. This was otherwise possible only in the facilities of the Department of Atomic Energy. The cyclotron has been running for nearly fifty years in Chandigarh. The film explores the life and legacy of the machine as well as the struggles and triumphs of its technicians, researchers and students. It is a comment on the state of experimental research and higher education in Indian universities. The film first premiered online at BIC during the pandemic, and now we’re excited to have a real screening. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Director and Producer, Jahnavi Phalkey and Science Communicator, Thomas Abraham.

A Q&A with the audience will follow.

Speakers

Jahnavi Phalkey Filmmaker & Historian of Science & Technology

Jahnavi Phalkey is a historian of science and technology and a filmmaker. She is the Founding Director of Science Gallery Bengaluru. Jahnavi is the author of Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth-Century India and the producer-director of the documentary film, ‘Cyclotron’. She is a recipient of the Infosys Prize in the Humanities (2023).

Thomas Abraham Writer & Science Communicator

Thomas Abraham is a science communicator and writer with a particular interest in how infectious diseases have shaped human history. He is the author of Twentieth Century Plague: The Story of SARS, and Polio: The Odyssey of Eradication. He is currently working on a book on the Covid-19 pandemic.