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Professor Sudhansu Datta Majumdar, the genius I met and worked with for 5 years, was profoundly modest and artless.
His classic 1947 article titled: ‘A Class of Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations’ was first submitted for publication to The Bulletin of The Calcutta Mathematical Society, and was promptly rejected (Thank you BCMS!). He re-sent the manuscript, without the Abstract, to Physical Review (because the first page of the manuscript containing its Abstract was soiled by stains of the reviewer's teacup). This time, however, the reviewer saw the audacious originality and importance of the paper, and wrote the abstract himself, so that it could be quickly published (those were the days of snail mail).
It was hailed as a great work abroad and was sometimes cited as Weyl-Majumdar Solutions (with which SDM was immensely pleased).
But soon, SDM left GR and shifted to QM and then to Molecular Spectroscopy, Group Theory and Electrodynamics.
Meanwhile, Papapetrou did work similar to SDM's work in GR, continued in GR and became a famous GR expert. Articles in GR started appearing with ‘Papapetrou-Majumdar’ solutions. This irritated SDM, and rightly so. If I am not mistaken, it was Papapetrou who chaired the Conference where Kerr was presenting his work, and alerted the audience to stop gossiping and listen seriously to Kerr. And everyone knows how path-breaking the Kerr Solution turned out to be for Black Hole Research.
Had SDM stuck to GR, many felt he would have done what Kerr did, and become famous much before Kerr. This is of course a guess, but from what I saw of SDM, there is a lot of truth in it. The Kerr Solution was JUST his cup of tea!
Meanwhile, QM Field Theory was entering GR. SDM showed me some article where the word 'Papapetron' was coined. SDM was furious and asked if 'Majumdaron' would be any less musical!
I often wondered how important one’s surname could be if it has to get tagged to a Field-Theoretic ‘-on’. This led to the following limerick, inspired by Arundhuti Ganguly.:
SDM & GR
His classic 1947 article titled: ‘A Class of Exact Solutions of Einstein's Field Equations’ was first submitted for publication to The Bulletin of The Calcutta Mathematical Society, and was promptly rejected (Thank you BCMS!). He re-sent the manuscript, without the Abstract, to Physical Review (because the first page of the manuscript containing its Abstract was soiled by stains of the reviewer's teacup). This time, however, the reviewer saw the audacious originality and importance of the paper, and wrote the abstract himself, so that it could be quickly published (those were the days of snail mail).
It was hailed as a great work abroad and was sometimes cited as Weyl-Majumdar Solutions (with which SDM was immensely pleased).
But soon, SDM left GR and shifted to QM and then to Molecular Spectroscopy, Group Theory and Electrodynamics.
Meanwhile, Papapetrou did work similar to SDM's work in GR, continued in GR and became a famous GR expert. Articles in GR started appearing with ‘Papapetrou-Majumdar’ solutions. This irritated SDM, and rightly so. If I am not mistaken, it was Papapetrou who chaired the Conference where Kerr was presenting his work, and alerted the audience to stop gossiping and listen seriously to Kerr. And everyone knows how path-breaking the Kerr Solution turned out to be for Black Hole Research.
Had SDM stuck to GR, many felt he would have done what Kerr did, and become famous much before Kerr. This is of course a guess, but from what I saw of SDM, there is a lot of truth in it. The Kerr Solution was JUST his cup of tea!
Meanwhile, QM Field Theory was entering GR. SDM showed me some article where the word 'Papapetron' was coined. SDM was furious and asked if 'Majumdaron' would be any less musical!
I often wondered how important one’s surname could be if it has to get tagged to a Field-Theoretic ‘-on’. This led to the following limerick, inspired by Arundhuti Ganguly.:
A lot is in a name
(with apologies to Shakespeare)
Bose was a small-town Bengaaly
Bose rhymed with Rose lovingly
He counted Photons
All hailed them Bosons
God’s great he wasn’t a Ganguly!
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