Talk:Chandra Wickramasinghe

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Professor Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe, BSc (Ceylon), MA, PhD, ScD (Cantab), Hon DSc (Sri Lanka, Ruhuna), Hon DLitt (Tokyo, Soka), FIMA, FRAS, FRSA

Director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, Cardiff University

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe was born in Sri Lanka and was educated at Royal College, Colombo and later at the University of Ceylon. In 1960 he obtained a First Class Honours degree in Mathematics and won a Commonwealth scholarship to proceed to Trinity College Cambridge. He commenced work in Cambridge on his PhD degree under the supervision of the late Sir Fred Hoyle, and published his first scientific paper in 1961. He was awarded a PhD degree in Mathematics in 1963 and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge in the same year. In the following year he was appointed a Staff Member of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Here he began his pioneering work on the nature of Interstellar Dust, publishing many papers in this field that led to important paradigm shifts in astronomy. He published the very first definitive book on Interstellar Grains in 1967. In 1973 he was awarded Cambridge University’s highest doctorate for Science, the prestigious ScD.

Chandra Wickramasinghe is acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading experts on interstellar material and the origins of life. He has made many important contributions in this field, publishing over 350 papers in major scientific journals, over 75 in the high-impact journal Nature. In 1974 he first proposed the theory that dust in interstellar space and in comets was largely organic, a theory that has now been vindicated. Jointly with the late Sir Fred Hoyle he was awarded the International Dag Hammarskjold Gold Medal for Science in 1986.

Chandra Wickramasinghe was a UNDP Consultant and Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka in 1982-84, and played a key role in the setting up of the Institute of Fundamental Studies in Sri Lanka. In 1983/84 he was appointed the founder Director of the Institute of Fundamental Studies by President J.R. Jayawardene. In 1992 he was decorated by the President of Sri Lanka with the titular honour of Vidya Jyothi. He was awarded the International Sahabdeen Prize for Science in 1996.

In 1973 he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics at University College, Cardiff, being the youngest Professor appointed at the University upto that time. He was responsible for starting an Astrophysics research group in Cardiff under the auspices of a new Department that was formed under his headship, the Department of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy. He remained Head of this Department until 1989 by which time the Astronomy Research School in Cardiff was regarded as being one of the best in the UK. From 1989-1999 he has held the post of Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy within a newly structured School of Mathematics at Cardiff University of Wales. In the year 2000 he was appointed Director of the newly formed Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology.

He is an award-winning poet and the author or co-author of over 25 books and over 350 scientific papers. He has held visiting professorial appointments in a large number of Universities world-wide. In recognition of his extensive contributions to science and culture he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Soka University of Tokyo, Japan in 1996.

He was the John Snow Memorial Lecturer and John Snow Medallist of the Association of Anasethetists of Great Britain and Ireland in 2004.

He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by the Unversity of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka in 2004.

Source: BlurbNCW2005.doc, Personal email from 'Dr Wickramasinghe' regarding his birthdate.

Note: His birthdate has been listed correctly in the year, 1939, and correctly linked back here.

--Artoftransformation 15:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Well I thought that I would just add your info and wait for someone to clear it up and improve it --Kinhull 23:14, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Publications list

This man is PROLIFIC. How do I condense the large amount of materal he has published? I know to pick the most signifcant books on Astronomy, physics, mathamatics, biology, but the sheer amount of volume. I will sleep on this. --Artoftransformation 15:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Most of his publications are just rehashing of already published material with extreme claims placed on the top. Most claims are derived from math mistakes, misreading of the original text, and faulty logic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.245.112.128 (talk) 04:37, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Organic molecules or life itself?

The 2nd para had suggested that panspermia is about organic molecules in space, and that life arose from these rather than from the primordial sea. a) There are other hypotheses of terrestrial abiogenesis than the primordial sea one. b) Wickramasinghe & co go much further than merely saying that organic molecules from space were useful when life started up on Earth. They maintain that life was actually carried to earth by 'spores from space'; indeed they suggest that it still is. Davy p 20:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Copyvio text?

The "Biography" section of the page looked like it was copied from another source, and upon some Google searching I found a paragraph almost identical to a paragraph from [1]. Is the content allowed to be on the page, or not? GlobeGores (talk page | user page) 07:10, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms

Where are the criticisms to panspermia's suggestions and theories? For such a grand theory there must exist a group of scientists who either refute this theory or have produced some kind of cogent argument against it.99.226.181.149 (talk) 17:56, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Massive POV

This is one of the most biased biographical articles I've seen on WP in recent times. The article subtly (and not so subtly) pushes the panspermia POV without even a passing mention of the many and wide criticisms of it or, more importantly, the complete lack of supporting evidence. I also note that there is no mention of Prof. Wickramasinghe even more fringe views and activities such as co-authoring a paper claiming that an Archaeopteryx specimen was a fake created by pressing chicken feathers into wet plaster surrounding a Compsognathus skeleton. 124.148.211.236 (talk) 07:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)