The University of Madras [UoM] has contributed two Nobel laureates to the world: Dr. Sir C.V. Raman and Dr Subramaniam Chandrasekar. Raman's disciple Dr. G.N. Ramachandran, was invited to establish the Department of Physics at the UoM in 1950. The research work by Dr. GNR, as he was called, is most remarkable. He proposed the triple helix structure of collagen, the 'ramachandran plot' to *validate* protein structures, 3D tomography using convolution method - the basic algorithm that made CT-Scans possible, by 1970s. Thereafter, he wrote a number of papers on Syad Nyaya - may be theory - that now passes as "fuzzy logic". He died in 2001, and most obituaries lamented that the Nobel missed this master.
His most outstanding research paper would be on "Three-dimensional Reconstruction from Radiographs and Electron Micrographs: Application of Convolutions instead of Fourier Transforms" now also available at http://www.pnas.org/content/68/9/2236.full.pdf This work with A.V. Lakshminarayanan was the starting point for the development of CAT scan technique in radiography and later, magnetic resonance imaging.
He helped to lay foundations for bio-physics, and this branch of science has grown leaps and bounds ever since, in the recent decades.
The last leg of his career was devoted to writing the papers on what passes as fuzzy logic today. The links to the GNR paper on BA-2 are from http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/currsci/51/00000685.pdf to *693.pdf He profoundly realised the role of computing in science, and he is the greatest computer scientist India has given to the world, in recent times.
We have not made optimum use of the research by this great scientist. As a first step, all the research papers published by him need to be collated and published online.
References:
[1] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/Gnrmain.htm
[2] http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/gnramachandran%20.htm
[3] http://www.ias.ac.in/j_archive/currsci/52/7/292-302/viewpage.html
[4] http://bioinfo.ernet.in/library/gnr/mat.html
[5] http://www.currentscience.ac.in/php/auth.php?authid=11647&author=Ramachandran,%20G.%20N.
