Narlikar was born in Kolhapur, India, on 19 July 1938, into a family of scholars. His father, Vishnu Vasudev Narlikar, was a mathematician and theoretical physicist who served as Professor and Head of Department of Mathematics at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, and mother, Sumati Narlikar, was a scholar of Sanskrit. His wife was mathematician Mangala Narlikar and they have three daughters.[2][3] His maternal uncle was the distinguished statistician V. S. Huzurbazar.[4]
Narlikar completed his school education from Central Hindu College [now Central Hindu Boys School]. He received his BSc degree from Banaras Hindu University in 1957. He then began his studies at Cambridge UniversityatFitzwilliam College like his father,[5] where he received a BA (Tripos) degree in mathematics in 1959 and was Senior Wrangler.[6] In 1960, he won the Tyson Medal for astronomy. During his doctoral studies at Cambridge, he won the Smith's Prize in 1962. After receiving his PhD degree in 1963 under the guidance of Fred Hoyle, he served as a Berry Ramsey Fellow at King's College in Cambridge and earned a master's degree in astronomy and astrophysics in 1964. He continued to work as a Fellow at King's College until 1972. In 1966, Fred Hoyle established Institute of Theoretical Astronomy in Cambridge, and Narlikar served as the founding staff member of the institute during 1966–72. In 1972, Narlikar took up Professorship at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, India. At the TIFR, he was in charge of the Theoretical Astrophysics Group. In 1988, the Indian University Grants Commission set up the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in Pune, and Narlikar became the Founder-Director of IUCAA. In 1981, Narlikar became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[7] Narlikar is known for his work in cosmology, especially in championing models alternative to the popular Big Bang model.[8] During 1994–1997, he was the President of the Cosmology Commission of the International Astronomical Union. His research work has involved Mach's principle, quantum cosmology, and action-at-a-distance physics. Narlikar was part of a study which cultured microorganisms from stratospheric air samples obtained at 41 km.[9] He was appointed as the chairperson of The Advisory Group for Textbooks in Science and Mathematics, the textbook development committee responsible for developing textbooks in Science and Mathematics, published by NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training).
Besides scientific papers and books and popular science literature, Narlikar has written science fiction, novels, and short stories in English, Hindi, and Marathi. He is also the consultant for the Science and Mathematics textbooks of NCERT (National Council of Educational Research and Training, India).
Narlikar married mathematics researcher and professor, Mangala Narlikar (née Rajwade). The couple have three daughters: Geeta, a biomedical researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, Girija and Leelavati who are in computer science. He is the uncle of the Cambridge University social sciences academic Amrita Narlikar.
^"Jayant Vishnu Narlikar". Meghnad.iucaa.ernet.in. 19 July 1938. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Jayant V Narlikar. "From Black Clouds to Black Holes". World Scientific Series in Astronomy and Astrophysics. 13 (3rd ed.). Archived from the original on 19 May 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2016.
