Jayant Narlikar

Jayant Vishnu Narlikar
Jayant Vishnu Narlikar
Born	(1938-07-19) 19 July 1938 (age 78) Kolhapur, Kolhapur State, Deccan States Agency, British India (present-day Maharashtra, India)
Residence	Pune, India
Nationality	Indian
Fields	Physics, astronomy,writer
Institutions	Cambridge University Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics
Alma mater	Banaras Hindu University Cambridge University
Doctoral advisor	Fred Hoyle
Doctoral students	Thanu Padmanabhan
Known for	Quasi-steady state cosmology Hoyle-Narlikar theory of gravity
Notable awards	Padma Vibhushan (2004) Adams Prize (1967) Padma Bhushan (1965)

Jayant Vishnu Narlikar (born 19 July 1938) is an Indian astrophysicist.

Narlikar is a proponent of steady state cosmology. He developed with Sir Fred Hoyle the conformal gravity theory, commonly known as Hoyle–Narlikar theory. It synthesises Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity and Mach's Principle. It proposes that the inertial mass of a particle is a function of the masses of all other particles, multiplied by a coupling constant, which is a function of cosmic epoch. In cosmologies based on this theory, the gravitational constant G decreases strongly with time.

Narlikar was born in Kolhapur, India on 19 July 1938 in a Karhade family of scholars. His father, Vishnu Vasudev Narlikar, was a mathematician who served as a professor and the Head of the Department of Mathematics at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. Jayant's mother, Sumati Narlikar, was a scholar of Sanskrit. His maternal uncle was the distinguished statistician V. S. Huzurbazar.

Narlikar received his Bachelor of Science degree from Banaras Hindu University in 1957. He then began his studies at Fitzwilliam House, Cambridge University in England, where he received a B.A. in mathematics in 1959 and was Senior Wrangler. In 1960, he won the Tyson Medal for astronomy. During his doctoral studies at Cambridge, he won the Smith's Prize in 1962. After receiving his PhD in 1963 under the guidance of Fred Hoyle, he served as a Berry Ramsey Fellow at King's College in Cambridge and earned an M.A. in astronomy and astrophysics in 1964. He continued to work as a Fellow at King's College until 1972. In 1966, Fred Hoyle established the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in Cambridge, and Narlikar served as the founder staff member of the institute during 1966–72.