Chandra Wickramasinghe

Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe
Born	20 January 1939 (1939-01-20) (age 72) Sri Lanka
Fields	Astronomy and Mathematics
Known for	Organic composition of cosmic dust

Vidya Jothi Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe (Sinhala:නලින් චන්ද්‍ර වික්‍රමසිංහ), FIMA, FRAS, FRSA (born 20 January 1939) is Professor at Cardiff University and Honorary Professor at the University of Buckingham. He is the Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology. Born and educated in Sri Lanka, he currently lives in Cardiff, Wales, UK.

He was a student and collaborator of Sir Fred Hoyle. Their joint work on the infrared spectra of interstellar grains led to developing the modern theory of panspermia. This theory proposes that cosmic dust in the interstellar medium and in comets is partly organic, and that life on Earth was 'seeded' from space rather than arising through abiogenesis.

He is currently working on extending the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe theory of cometary panspermia to a cosmological context in collaboration with Carl H. Gibson and R.E. Schild. He is also making further identifications of spectral features in comets and in the interstellar medium with degraded biomaterial, thus corroborating panspermia theories.

"My most significant astronomical contribution was to develop the theory of organic grains in comets and in the interstellar medium. This was done during the 1970s and 80's, and it is now accepted by everyone almost without remembering its origins! I feel I also played a part in the birth of the science of astrobiology."

He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Royal Astronomical Society and the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications; and has also won awards for his poetry.

Early life and education

Wickramasinghe was born in Sri Lanka and was educated at Royal College, Colombo thereafter at the University of Ceylon where he graduated in 1960 with a BSc First Class Honours degree in Mathematics. He won a Commonwealth scholarship to proceed to Trinity College, Cambridge. He commenced work in Cambridge on his PhD degree under the supervision of the late Sir Fred Hoyle, and published his first scientific paper in 1961. He was awarded a PhD in Mathematics in 1963 and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge in the same year.

Academic career

In the following year he was appointed a Staff Member of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. Here he began his pioneering work on the nature of Interstellar Dust, publishing many papers in this field that led to important paradigm shifts in astronomy. He published the very first definitive book on Interstellar Grains in 1967. In 1973 he was awarded Cambridge University’s highest doctorate for Science, the prestigious ScD.

Chandra Wickramasinghe is acknowledged as being one of the world’s leading experts on interstellar material and the origins of life. He has made many important contributions in this field, publishing over 350 papers in major scientific journals, over 75 in the high-impact journal Nature. In 1974 he first proposed the theory that dust in interstellar space and in comets was largely organic, a theory that has now been vindicated. Jointly with the late Sir Fred Hoyle he was awarded the International Dag Hammarskjold Gold Medal for Science in 1986.

Wickramasinghe was a UNDP Consultant and Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka in 1982-84, and played a key role in the setting up of the Institute of Fundamental Studies in Sri Lanka. In 1983/84 he was appointed the founder Director of the Institute of Fundamental Studies by President Junius Jayawardene. In 1992 he was decorated by the President of Sri Lanka with the titular honour of Vidyaj Yothi. He was awarded the International Sahabdeen Prize for Science in 1996.

In 1973 he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics at University College, Cardiff, being the youngest Professor appointed at the University up to that time. He was responsible for starting an Astrophysics research group in Cardiff under the auspices of a new Department that was formed under his headship, the Department of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy. He remained Head of this Department until 1989 by which time the Astronomy Research School in Cardiff was regarded as being one of the best in the UK. From 1989-1999 he held the post of Professor of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy within a newly structured School of Mathematics at Cardiff University of Wales. In the year 2000 he was appointed Director of the newly formed Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology. The University announced it was withdrawing funding for the Centre in 2010 and in 2011 the Centre transferred to the University of Buckingham.

He is an award-winning poet and the author or co-author of over 25 books and over 350 scientific papers. He has held visiting professorial appointments in a large number of Universities worldwide. In recognition of his extensive contributions to science and culture he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Soka University of Tokyo, Japan in 1996.

He was the John Snow Memorial Lecturer and John Snow Medalist of the Association of Anesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland in 2004.

Detection of Living Cells in the Stratosphere

On the 20th of January 2001 the Indian Space Research Organisation conducted a balloon flight from Hyderabad, India to collect stratospheric dust from a height of 41km with a view to testing for the presence of living cells. The collaborators on this project included a team of UK scientists led by Wickramasinghe. In a paper first presented at a SPIE conference in San Diego in 2002 the detection of evidence for viable microorganisms from 41km was presented (Melanie J. Harris, N.C. Wickramasinghe, David Lloyd et al, Proc SPIE, vol 4495, p192). An image of a clump of microorganisms from 41km fluorescing on application of a carbocyanine dye (indicating viability) is shown in the left panel, and scanning electron microscope image of a similar clump is shown on the right panel:

This data is arguably the best indicator of ongoing panspermia – present day introduction of bacteria from comets. But arguments still rage as to whether these represent incoming microbes from space, or microbes carried up to 41km from the surface of the Earth.

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

On the 24th May 2003 The Lancet published a letter from Wickramasinghe, jointly signed by Milton Wainwright and Jayant Narlikar, which suggested that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) could be extraterrestrial. The letter is currently (December 2006) referenced on the Cardiff Astrobiology website. It includes this claim:

With respect to the SARS outbreak, a prima facie case for a possible space incidence can already be made...

A small amount of the culprit virus introduced into the stratosphere could make a first tentative fall out East of the great mountain range of the Himalayas, where the stratosphere is thinnest, followed by sporadic deposits in neighbouring areas.

The publication of this letter generated a certain amount of coverage in news media, including the BBC and National Geographic magazine.

Wickramasinghe was also involved in coordinating analyses of the Red Rain of Kerala in collaborations with Professor Godfrey Louis, work that received wide publicity including a special edition of the BBC2 Horizon programmes.

Honors and awards

• Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge in 1963
• ScD by the Cambridge University in 1973.
• Titular honour Vidya Jyothi by the government of Sri Lanka in 1992
• International Sahabdeen Prize for Science in 1996
• Honorary DLitt by the Soka University of Tokyo, Japan in 1996.
• Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka in 2004.

Publications

• Arp, H.C., Burbidge, G., Hoyle, F., Narlikar, J.V. and Wickramasinghe, N.C., The extragalactic universe: an alternative view, Nature 346:807–812, August 30, 1990.
• Hoyle, F. and Wickramasinghe N.C., Lifecloud - The Origin of Life in the Universe, Pub. J.M. Dent and Sons, 1978. ISBN 0-460-04335-8
• Wickramasinghe, N.C. and Ikeda D., Space and Eternal Life, 1998; ISBN 1-85172-060-X. (Also available in Japanese).
• Fred Hoyle & Chandra Wickramasinghe, "Our Place In The Cosmos", Life Did Not Begin On Earth - It Arrived From Space And Is Still Arriving ISBN 1-85799-433-7 J M Dent Ltd, Phoenix Publications 1993.
• Chandra Wickramasinghe, "Cosmic Dragons:Life and Death on Our Planet", ISBN 0 285 6360-6 5, Souvenir Press, London, 2001.
• Richard Hoover, C. N. Wickramasinghe, R. Joseph, Rudy Schild, The Discovery of Alien Extra-Terrestrial Life: The Cosmic Origins of Life, ISBN 978-0982955291. Cosmology Science Publishers (March 22, 2011)

Further reading

• Chandra Wickramasinghe, A Journey with Fred Hoyle: The Search for Cosmic Life, World Scientific Publishing, 2005, ISBN 981-238-912-1
• Janaki Wickramasinghe, Chandra Wickramasinghe and William Napier, Comets and the Origin of Life, World Scientific Publishing, 2009, ISBN 981-256-635-X

External links

• Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology (BCAB)
• Review of Space and Eternal Life
• A panspermic view of life Interview with N. Chandra Wickramasinghe
• Star treatment for astronomer
• Professor Wickramasinghe Bio
• 'Life from space' expert loses funding
• Professor Wickramasinghe's profile at the University of Buckingham
• Biography in Debrett's People of Today

His work has been published here:

• Scintilla Issue 1(1997) ‘Speech’; ‘Monsoon’; ‘The Chase’; ‘Evening’
• Interviews

Persondata
Name	Wickramasinghe, Chandra
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	20 January 1939
Place of birth	Sri Lanka
Date of death
Place of death