| RefNo | EC/1979/20 |
| Previous numbers | Cert XX, 153 |
| Level | Item |
| Title | Lal, Devendra: certificate of election to the Royal Society |
| Date | 1973 |
| Description | Citation typed |
| Citation | Professor Lal is distinguished for his contributions to cosmic ray physics, high energy and elementary particle physics, as well as to various areas in the earth sciences and astrophysics. His significant achievements cover: (i) the development of large stripped emulsion blocks for particle detection, which were used for the elucidation of aspects relating to the production and properties of strange particles; in particular the first decisive evidence for the existence of negative K-mesons suffering nuclear capture on being brought to rest; the then most accurate estimates of the energy release in the Kpi3 and lambda to infinity decays; and an important observation on the associated production of strange particles; (ii) discovery of a number of radio isotopes of greatly varying half-lives produced in the earth's atmosphere by cosmic ray bombardment and a determination of the altitude and latitude wide global production of these; (iii) use of these radio isotopes as tracers for determination of mass movements and time scales in transport phenomena in earth sciences, particularly in oceanography and meteorology; (iv) setting up of the first and only radio-carbon laboratory in India from which several hundred accurate dates have been obtained for Indian archaeological horizons; (v) development of extremely sensitive microchemical and low level radiation counting techniques; (vi) development of the fossil track technique as a quantitative tool, using which, through studies of samples from meteorites and lunar samples brought back by manned missions, important results have been obtained on cosmic ray charge and energy spectra and prehistory over the past million years, and evidence for the possible existence of super heavy trans-plutonium elements of mass number around 300. |
| AccessStatus | Closed |
Fellows associated with this archive
| Code | PersonName | Dates |
| NA3893 | Lal; Devendra (1929 - 2012) | 1929 - 2012 |