One of the most extraordinary parts of the Lodha Genius Programme was the Great Ideas Seminar series: lectures and conversations with Nobel laureates, leading scientists, and innovators from across the world. These weren't lectures in the traditional sense, and were more like windows into how exceptional minds think and question. Here's what each one was about.
Delivered by Professor Haruzo Hida, recipient of the 2019 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research from the American Mathematical Society, and Distinguished Research Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Professor Hida walked us through Euler's remarkable work on the Basel problem and the zeta function, how Euler computed the sum of reciprocals of perfect squares and connected it to π². We learnt a lot about how research is primarily conducted in pure mathematics, while also gaining insights from Professor Hida about his work with Sir Andrew Wiles, the Abel Prize winner who proved Fermat's last theorem.
A joint session by Professor Raja GuhaThakurta, Professor at UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California Santa Cruz, and Professor Brian Schmidt, recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics and Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University. Together they traced the story of how we came to understand that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, a discovery so counterintuitive that it earned Schmidt and his collaborators the Nobel Prize. We also learnt a lot about dark matter and the universe as a whole.
Delivered by Sir Paul Nurse, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, former President of the Royal Society, and Chief Executive and Director of the Francis Crick Institute. Sir Paul took on one of the most deceptively simple questions in all of science: What is Life?, a topic his own book was written about, and approached it through the lens of cell biology and evolution. He argued that understanding life requires understanding information: how it is stored and transmitted. It was one of the most thought-provoking hours of the programme. We were also fortunate enough to received copies of the book What is Life? (2020), written by Sir Paul Nurse himself, free of charge delivered to our homes by the Lodha Genius Programme.
A dual talk by Dr. Brigitte Godard, ESA Space Surgeon, and Dr. Sharmila Bhattacharya, Principal Investigator at NASA Ames Research Center. This session explored what happens to the human body in space and how microgravity and isolation alter biology in ways that challenge our understanding of medicine on Earth. Dr. Bhattacharya's work on model organisms in space and Dr. Godard's clinical experience with astronauts made this one of the most practically grounded talks of the series.
Delivered by Professor Thomas Lecuit, Professor at Collège de France. Professor Lecuit studies how biological forms emerge from the coordinated behaviour of cells and how a single fertilised egg reliably produces the same complex organism every time. His talk bridged physics and biology, exploring the mechanical forces and signalling pathways that sculpt living tissue. It also fascinated us by highlighting the scale of size in our life, and the variation in sizes around the world.
A conversation with Hari Shroff, Senior Group Leader at Janelia Research Campus and developer of breakthrough optical microscopy methods. Shroff has built microscopes that can image living cells at resolutions and speeds previously thought impossible. These microscopes were very much the topic of the entire conversation and it was really interesting to hear more about Shroff's team's work on the same.
Delivered by Arvind Gupta, Padma Shree awardee, Indian science educator, toy inventor, author, and translator. This was unlike any other session in the series. Arvind Gupta has spent decades building science toys from trash, matchsticks, straws, newspaper, and using them to teach physics and mathematics to children across India. He showed us, live, how to make a dozen different toys in minutes. It was joyful and humbling: a reminder that curiosity doesn't require equipment, and that the best science education often happens without a classroom. He ended the lecture with a very interesting story of a captain at sea and using a piece of newspaper as a prop.
Delivered by Mossi Traoré, French fashion designer and Founder of the MOSSI fashion label. Traoré spoke about designing at the intersection of African heritage and contemporary innovation, and about how creativity operates under constraint. For a room full of mathematicians and scientists, it was a genuinely different way of thinking about aesthetics and culture. We also got the opportunity to feel and touch many of the different unconventional fabrics that Mossi is working with in the Mossi Fashion Label in an effort to make fashion more memorable.
We visited Aperture Telescopes and spent an evening learning astrophotography from Shri Ajay Talwar, an astrophotographer with over 30 years of experience and one of only two people in the world to have ever captured a tutulemma — an analemma that contains a solar eclipse. Watching someone who has dedicated decades to photographing the sky talk about patience, timing, and the relationship between science and art was a quietly profound experience. I also got to hold in my hand a peice of meteor that has struck north India years ago, and also got the opporunity to participate in a VR simulation gameplay about the International Space Station (ISS).
On the final day, graduation certificates were awarded by Professor Somak Raychaudhury, Vice-Chancellor at Ashoka University and past Director of IUCAA.
