Discussion journal of the Mössbauer Community

[Vijayendra Garg <vijgarg AT gmail.com>]

Prof. & Dr. Junhu Wang
Regards, best wishes
Vijayendra Kumar Garg
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For mix,kfki
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on Professor Satya Pal Puri , Mossbauer Spectroscopist.

On 30th January, 1930, just a day before the first anniversary of Nobel
laureate Ruolf L. Mössbauer, Professor Satya Pal Puri was born in a small
family in rural India. His parents, especially his mother, desired him to
devote himself fervently to his education. With his introspective bent of
mind and incisive attitude, he will assess the outcome of any step before
venturing it. It is his wont to attend to the job in hand with consummate
attention and a single-track mind, and as a consequence, he could win
laurels in his academic career throughout. He had uninterrupted university
positions throughout. Furthermore, it is his wife who gave him complete
support and encouragement to pursue his scientific career relentlessly.
They are blessed with three brilliant sons who are successful in their
respective careers and are a source of strength to the family. In no lesser
measure, he attributes his success to the contributions made by a band of
dedicated students, who are distinguished professionals in their own right.
His other interests include reading literature, poetry, philosophy, and
biographies of great men. He always considered the wisdom lore of the world
as his inheritance and his privilege to drink deep the cup of consolation.
Prof. S. P. Puri, who has been Emeritus Fellow, was Professor and Chairman,
Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh. Earlier, Reader in
Physics at the University of Roorkee and Professor and Head, Department of
Physics, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. He received his
M.Sc.(Hons. School) In physics from Panjab University in 1953 and Ph.D.
from Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh in 1956, under Prof. P S Gill. He
had uninterrupted university positions throughout his academic career and
was awarded an I C I fellowship by the National Institute of Sciences, New
Delhi. He did his postdoctoral research at Bartol Research Foundation,
Swarthmore, PA (U.S.A.), and later joined the University of Alabama
(U.S.A.) as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics. He visited the
school of Quantum Chemistry, University of Uppsala, Sweden, in addition to
visiting numerous universities and research institutes in the erstwhile
USSR. He was one of the earliest in INDIA to establish the studies of
Nuclear Gamma-Ray Resonance (Mössbauer Effect) in Roorkee in 1963 and
established an active school of research, and several students got their
Ph.D. degrees. With the help of motivated students, he could make valuable
contributions to the studies of EFG tensors in single crystals and other
diverse studies of minerals and chemical compounds. His other special
fields of interest include the Crystal Field and Molecular orbital
theories. Professor Puri has been a dedicated driving force for the
improvement of quality education at the university level in India. He has
written many textbooks, published by Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company,
New Delhi, and Macmillan (India), Classical Electrodynamics, General Theory
of Relativity, and Special Theory of Relativity for the physics graduate
students.
95 years young, active research with his students  Kailash C. Mittal, Deo
Raj (deceased) Vijayendra K Garg, S. P. Taneja, S.  S. Nandwani, Vishwa
Mitra. Professor Puri undertook to write one of the most important chapters
of the development of Mössbauer spectroscopy in the Third World.
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