Talk:Radha Balakrishnan

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This page should not be speedily deleted because Radha Balakrishnan is a prominent physicist. I am working on her profile on Wikipedia. Hope this clarifies. Parul Thakur (talk) 16:23, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Parul Thakur[reply]

Hello @

Anupmehra -Let's talk! 16:34, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply

]

Thanks for the suggestion User talk:Anupmehra. I will keep that in mind! Parul Thakur (talk) 16:39, 25 February 2014 (UTC)Parul[reply]

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest was declined.

The lead paragraph to be changed FROM:

Radha Balakrishnan is an Indian physicist. She works at Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai primarily related to nonlinear dynamics and applications in physics.[1][2][3]

TO:

Radha Balakrishnan is an Indian theoretical physicist. She is a retired professor at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, India. ^[1] After her early work in condensed matter physics on quantum crystals, she switched fields to nonlinear dynamics and has published research papers on a variety of topics. Some of these are: soliton dynamics in different types of Heisenberg spin chains, nonuniform media and superfluid helium; the discovery of `everlasting solitons' in Bose-Einstein condensates^[2]; geometric phases associated with moving space curves and applications to diverse systems such as magnetic chains, phase trajectories of dynamical systems and Bose-Einstein Josephson junctions; intricate connections between classical integrability, differential geometry and topology. She has several single author publications.

REASONS for the changes in the lead paragraph:

Changes in the first two sentences are self-explanatory. Since nonlinear dynamics is a general field, subtopics have been added. These topics can be corroborated from the following external link already present in her existing wikipedia page: Radha Balakrishnan publications indexed by Google Scholar.

RELIABLE SOURCES for references in support of changes requested in the lead paragraph:

Reference [1] can be reliably sourced to:
 https://www.imsc.res.in/former-faculty, since the name Radha Balakrishnan is listed there.

Reference [2] can be reliably sourced to:
 https://phys.org/news/2009-12-everlasting-quantum-physicists-soliton-ultracold.html, since Radha Balakrishnan is mentioned there.

• I've made some changes to the lead paragraph. Will leave the rest of the request to someone else. -Kj cheetham (talk) 14:26, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Write up given in Section 2 titled Career should be changed FROM:

During the 1980s, when Balakrishnan returned to India, she worked at the Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Madras as a Research Associate. She joined Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai in 1987. She retired in the year 2004 and since that time, Balakrishnan is continuing her research as a CSIR Emeritus Scientist.^[4] Her current research is on Nonlinear Dynamics, Solitons and Applications in Physics, Connections to Classical Differential Geometry.^[1]

TO:

Career

Radha Balakrishnan's career in physics has been a very unusual one ^[3]. Her struggles started after she returned to India in 1970 with a Ph. D in physics from Brandeis University, USA. From 1970-1982, she did not have a formal affiliation to any academic institution. Unwritten nepotism rules meant that she could not be hired in the institution where her physicist husband had a permanent position. Since this institution was at an isolated place, there were no universities or colleges nearby for her to find a suitable job without breaking up her family with two children. With great initiative and a passion for research, she continued to publish papers from home, at a time when there was no internet, and no direct access to libraries with research journals.^[4] After her husband relocated to IIT Madras, Chennai, she obtained temporary positions at the Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Madras, Chennai: CSIR Research Associate (1982-85); UGC Research Associate (1985-87). She continued to publish, and taught M.Sc courses there. She also switched her research field to nonlinear dynamics. In 1987, she finally obtained a permanent faculty position at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai, India, nearly 17 years after her Ph.D. Her example highlights the difficult situations women find themselves in, when they try to balance family responsibilities with their career choices.

After her superannuation as professor at IMSc in 2004, she continued her research there first as a CSIR Emeritus Scientist (2004-2009), followed by a similar position funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) (2009-2014). She has been a CNRS Visiting Professor in France, and a frequent visitor to the Los Alamos National Laboratory (U.S.A) for research collaboration.

Radha Balakrishnan was one of the Indian women physicists featured at the First International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) conference on Women in Physics, held in Paris, France, in 2002. A poster with her suggestions to help women pursue research careers in physics was displayed there.^[5]

REASONS for the changes in the section titled Career:

 Errors in the existing wikipedia page with regard to various pertinent details about the  career of Radha Balakrishnan needed correction.  Positions held after her superannuation needed updates.  All changes are based on the reliable, published sources mentioned below.

RELIABLE SOURCES for references in support of changes requested in the section titled Career:

Reference [3] can be sourced to:

https://www.ias.ac.in/public/Resources/Initiatives/Women_in_Science/Contributors/radhabalakrishnan.pdf

Title of article: Return to the mainstream: The tortuous track.

Published in : LILAVATI'S DAUGHTERS The Women Scientists of India; Eds. R. Godbole and R. Ramaswamy, The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India (2008), pages 35-37. This is a collection of biographical and autobiographical essays on Women Scientists of India.

Reference [4] can be sourced to:

https://www.tifr.res.in/~ipa1970/news/2021/JanJune/19-NE_IPA50_PD_Vol51(1-2).pdf [Published in PHYSICS NEWS (Official Bulletin of the Indian Physics Association,IIT Bombay, Mumbai) vol. 51, Jan-June 2021, under `News and Events: A report on panel discussion `Women in Physics: where do we go from here?', pages 83-85.]

Reference [5] can be sourced to:

https://if.ufrgs.br/iupap/index-conference-2002.html

[See under Posters (country data); India: 7th entry from top.]

Write up in Section 4 titled Awards and honours to be changed FROM:

From the 1990s, she had been studying the deep connections between nonlinearity and the differential geometry of curves and surfaces. Balakrishnan received the Tamil Nadu Scientists Award in the Physical Sciences (1999) for her work. She also received INSA’s Professor Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Lecture Award (2005) for original and pioneering contributions in nonlinear dynamics.[4]

To:

Awards and Honours

Fulbright Scholar Award, U.S.A (1984, 1989, 1995); Senior Associateship Award, International Centre for Theoretical Physics [ICTP], Trieste , Italy (1992-1997); Tamil Nadu Scientist Award (1999) in the field of Physical Sciences, for her work on Geometric Aspects of Nonlinearity; Professor Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Lecture Award (2005) from Indian National Science Academy (INSA) for her original and pioneering contributions in nonlinear dynamics.

REASONS for the changes in the section titled `Awards and honours':

Update gives the full list of awards.

RELIABLE source: https://www.ias.ac.in/Initiatives/Women_in_Science/The_Women_Scientists_of_India

Section 5 References  to be changed FROM:

   [1] "Radha Balakrishnan". Retrieved 25 February 2014.

   [2] G. Caglioti, A. Ferro Milone, ed. (17 March 2013). Mechanical and Thermal Behaviour of Metallic Materials Enrico Fermi International School of Physics. Elsevier, 1982. p. 324. ISBN 9780080983837. Retrieved 25 February 2014.

   [3] Selected Topics in Mathematical Physics: Professor R. Vasudevan Memorial Volume. Allied Publishers, 1995. 1995. p. 287. ISBN 9788170234883. Retrieved 25 February 2014.

    [4] "Autobiographical article" (PDF). Retrieved 25 February 2014.

TO:

References

[1] https://www.imsc.res.in/former-faculty

[2] https://phys.org/news/2009-12-everlasting-quantum-physicists-soliton-ultracold.html

[3] https://www.ias.ac.in > public > radhabalakrishnan

Return to the mainstream: The tortuous track. Published in : LILAVATI'S DAUGHTERS The Women Scientists of India; Eds. R. Godbole and R. Ramaswamy, The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India (2008), pages 35-37. This is a collection of biographical and autobiographical articles on Women Scientists of India.

[4] https://www.tifr.res.in/~ipa1970/news/2021/JanJune/PN_JanJune21_Index.html [Published in PHYSICS NEWS, vol. 51, Jan-June 2021, under `News and Events: A report on panel discussion `Women in Physics: where do we go from here?', pages 83-85.]

[5] https://if.ufrgs.br/iupap/index-conference-2002.html [See under Posters (country data); India: 7th entry from top.]

REASONS for the changes in the list of References

Old reference [1] cited in the lead paragraph of the existing page does not link to Radha Balakrishnan. The old reference should be removed and replaced by the new reliable source where her name appears.

Old reference [2] is incorrect and does not mention Radha Balakrishnan. The old reference should be removed and replaced by the new reliably sourced reference [2] (cited in the updated lead paragraph).

Old reference [3] does not connect to Radha Balakrishnan. The old reference should be removed and replaced by the new reliably sourced reference [3] (cited in the updated section on Career).

Old reference [4] does not work. It should be removed and replaced by the new reliably sourced reference [4] (cited in the updated section on Career).

A new reliably sourced reference [5] has been added to the updated page, since it is cited in the updated section on Career. 117.254.35.93 (talk) 17:38, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the citations are to an autobiographical essay written by the subject of the article, which is not a reliable source. I tried to find my own reliable sources for some of the claims, but was unable to do so. Sorry. Duke Gilmore (talk) 23:10, 9 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]