KOLKATA: Renowned nuclear physicist Bikash Sinha, a former director of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics (SINP) and the Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre (VECC), died here on Friday.
Saha, 78, who was suffering from old age-related ailments, was a recipient of Padma Bhushan in 2010 for his contribution to science & technology.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, condoling his demise, described him as a talented nuclear physicist and illustrious son of Bengal.
"Saddened to know about the untimely demise of the great scientist Bikash Sinha," Banerjee tweeted.
The SINP and VECC, under his directorship, collaborated with the CERN (European Organisation for Nuclear Research) for experiments in particle physics.
Sinha had held the Homi Bhaba chair at the VECC and was a fellow of the Indian National Science Academy.
Born in a zamindar family of Kandi in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, he studied physics at Presidency College in Kolkata, before pursuing higher studies in the subject at King's College, Cambridge.
Sinha, a fellow of several academies including the 3rd World Academy of Sciences, Italy, and recipient of numerous awards, contributed immensely to the field of Quark Gluon Plasma, a state of matter in quantum chromodynamics that exists at extremely high temperature and/or density.
He led the team from India to participate in the experiments at CERN, Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the USA and at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) in Germany.
A recipient of Padma Shri in 2001 and the SN Bose Birth Centenary Award of the Indian Science Congress Association in 1994, he was conferred by the West Bengal government the state's highest award 'Bangabibhushan' in 2022 and also the 'Rabindra Smriti Puraskar' in the same year.
Sinha was the Vice-chancellor of West Bengal University of Technology.
Apart from scientific contributions, he is a regular writer on popular science in Bengali.