Prahalad Chunnilal Vaidya

For the last several years, Vaidya had confined himself to his Shardanagar house in Ahmedabad due to deteriorating health. He was diagnosed with a kidney ailment in January 2010. He died on 12 March 2010 at Ahmedabad.

In 1971, he was appointed Chairman of Gujarat Public Service Commission. This was followed by Union Public Service Commission membership during 1977 – 78, during which he served Central Government. His final professional benchmark was the Vice-Chancellorship of Gujarat University during 1978 – 80.

In June 1971, he delivered a very informative course of lectures at the Institut Henri Poincare, Paris in June 1971. In July 1971, he attended the 6th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation at Copenhagen.

In February 1969, in an occasion to felicitate Professor V. V. Narlikar on his 60th birthday, Professor Vaidya made a proposition to found a society of Indian relativists. The result was the Indian Association for General Relativity and Gravitation (IAGRG), and Professor V. V. Narlikar assumed the position of founder President.

During 1964 to 1973, Vaidya served as visiting professor at number of international universities, including:

As a visionary educationist, he felt a top-down need to change the way mathematics training was imparted to students, and began programs to educate mathematics teachers on "How to teach mathematics." He frequently interacted with primary students, and tried to awaken their curiosity in mathematics. His foundation of Gujarat Mathematical Society in Bhavnagar, 1964 was aimed at this objective. He tried to reach to farthest rural areas, and aimed the society's efforts to empower teachers and eradicate fear of the subject from students' minds.

In his efforts to popularise mathematics among Indian students, Professor Vaidya started 'Suganitam' mathematics magazine in 1960s. Since its inception, it has been continually read in numerous schools and colleges, and has inspired generations of mathematics teachers and students alike.

Vaidya was a recipient of the Bombay University's Springer Research Scholarship. Vaidya's initial research under this scholarship resulted in a paper that he sent to Robert Oppenheimer, who appreciated the paper and sent it to the American Physical Society journal Physical Review. The journal published the paper in 1951.

Professor Vaidya obtained his Doctoral degree (PhD) in mathematics in 1949.

After his research stint at BHU, he went to a number of places to teach mathematics, including science institutions in Surat, Rajkot and Mumbai. During a small period of 1947 – 48, he went to Tata Institute of Fundamental Research as a research associate. There he became associated with Homi Bhabha, father of India's nuclear program. Due to accommodation constraints, he left Mumbai, and continued the rest of his academic career in Gujarat. From 1948 to 1971, he taught at various colleges including: V. P. College, Vallabh Vidyanagar; Gujarat College, Ahmedabad; M.N. College, Visnagar; and University School of Sciences, Gujarat University.

In 1942, P. C. Vaidya wrote to Professor Vishnu Vasudev Narlikar, father of Indian physicist Jayant Narlikar, expressing his desire to study relativity. Narlikar approved this, and Vaidya immediately moved to Banaras Hindu University(BHU), Varanasi, where Narlikar was a faculty member at the school of relativity. Vaidya was at Banaras for about ten months.

Professor Vaidya's research on general theory of relativity was started when he went to Banaras Hindu University in 1942, where he joined the school of relativity started by Professor V. V. Narlikar. It was only ten months that he spent at BHU at that time, during which the revolutionary idea of developing a spacetime geometry was born within him, which would describe the gravitational potentials in the exterior of a radiating star.

Vaidya's first stint at teaching was at the Dharmendra Singhji College in Rajkot, where he joined as a lecturer in 1940, soon after completing his MSc examinations. Vaidya taught trigonometry and arithmetic to undergraduate students. The college was then managed by the St Xavier's College, Bombay for half the term, after which the royal family of Rajkot under His Highness Pradyumansinhji Lakhajirajsinhji, the 14th Thakore Saheb of Rajkot, took control of the college. Due to differences with the new management, Vaidya resigned in 1941 and subsequently started with freedom fighter Prithvi Singh Azad at the Ahimsak Vyayam Sangh institute of physical education, where he was the principal for non-violent struggle training programme for youths. Meanwhile, he continued teaching mathematics by conducting private tuition for school students.

Prahalad Chunnilal Vaidya (P.C.Vaidya; 23 May 1918 – 12 March 2010), was an Indian physicist and mathematician, renowned for his instrumental work in the general theory of relativity. Apart from his scientific career, he was also an educationist and a follower of Gandhian philosophy in post-independence India, specifically in his domicile state Gujarat.

P. C. Vaidya was born in Shahpur of Junagadh district, Gujarat, India on 23 May 1918.