Meet the IITian Who Won a Prize Three Times Larger Than the Nobel, India's Million-Dollar Scientist Still Cycling to Work
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IITian Ashoke Sen: Million-Dollar Scientist Who Bikes to Work Despite Huge Prize
M
Moneycontrol•09-03-2026, 11:47
IITian Ashoke Sen: Million-Dollar Scientist Who Bikes to Work Despite Huge Prize
•Professor Ashoke Sen, an IITian and renowned physicist, won the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, worth three million dollars.
•The prize money was nearly three times that of a Nobel Prize, yet Sen continues to live a remarkably simple life, cycling to work at Harish-Chandra Research Institute in Prayagraj.
•Born in Kolkata, Sen studied at Presidency College and IIT Kanpur before pursuing higher studies abroad, but chose to return to India.
•His groundbreaking work in string theory, including the "Sen Conjecture," significantly advanced theoretical physics and sparked the "second superstring revolution."
•Sen donated a large portion of his prize money to support students and scientific research in India, emphasizing his dedication to the work itself.
