Dear friends and colleagues, I am delighted to invite you to the *online launch <https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/cyclotron/>* of my first film, Cyclotron! The film grew out of my research on the beginnings of experimental nuclear physics in India, part of which was published as a book (*Atomic State: Big Science in Twentieth Century India*). One story that did not make it into the book, became this film.
The film can be watched starting today until 4 October 2020 <https://bangaloreinternationalcentre.org/event/cyclotron/> on the Bangalore International Centre screening platform - *BIC Streams*. On Sunday 27 September*,* I will be in a conversation with Shiraz Minwalla about the film for which you may register here <https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/9016006872394/WN_4BAsaGTYRXmJienFbanPjg> . *About the film*: Cyclotron is a film about the world’s oldest functional particle accelerator and the people who keep it running today. Operational in 1936 at the University of Rochester, United States, it was built merely three years after the very first cyclotron was built by Ernest Lawrence at Berkeley. The entire set-up in Rochester was dismantled and sent to India in 1967, and is now housed at the Panjab University, Chandigarh. With the cyclotron, the regional university became one of the very few places in India for research and education in nuclear physics. This was otherwise possible only in the facilities of the Department of Atomic Energy. The cyclotron has been running for nearly fifty years in Chandigarh. The film explores the life and legacy of the machine as well as the struggles and triumphs of its technicians, researchers and students; it is also a comment on the state of experimental research and higher education in Indian universities. I much hope that you will be able to watch the film and perhaps join in the discussion! Warmly, Jahnavi -- J A H N A V I P H A L K E Y Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru Sir Asutosh Mukherjee Visiting Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies
