V Balakrishnan

V Balakrishnan (born 1943 as Venkataraman Balakrishnan) is an Indian theoretical physicist who has worked in a number of fields of areas, including particle physics, manybody theory, the mechanical behavior of solids, dynamical systems, stochastic processes, and quantum dynamics He is an accomplished researcher who has made important contributions to the theory of anelasticity, continuoustime random walks, and recurrences in dynamical systems He received his PhD from Brandeis University in 1970 After a decade at TIFR and IGCAR Kalpakkam, he joined IIT Madras as a Professor of Physics in 1980 He was elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1985 In addition to his research, Balakrishnan is a popular and noted teacher of Physics, known for his engaging teaching style, which combines physical insight, mathematical rigor, and wry wit He has taught a very wide range of courses over the past 30 years from introductory physics to quantum field theory to dynamical systems Two of his courses (38 lectures on classical physics and 31 on quantum physics) taught at IIT Madras through National_Programme_on_Technology_Enhanced_Learning are available on YouTube, and are extremely popular, having received about 1 million views in all (as of December 2011) In addition to that, a third series appeared in June, 2014 on Mathematical Physics which continues to blow off minds of young physics enthusiasts
Balakrishnan has authored the book Elements of Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics (CRC Press 2008), and has coauthored the book Beyond the Crystalline State: An Emerging Perspective (Springer 1989) Preliminary drafts of a comprehensive book on Mathematical Physics based on his courses have been circulated, and the book will likely appear in print in 2012 His wife, Radha Balakrishnan, is a theoretical physicist who works on nonlinear dynamics (in particular, solitons and integrable systems) His son, Hari Balakrishnan, is currently the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science at MIT His daughter, Hamsa Balakrishnan, is also on the faculty at MIT as an Associate Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics