You can view excerpts from this interview in our video link

Dr M S Ananth graduated from the A C College of Technology with a gold medal in Chemical Engineering. He obtained his Ph D from the University of Florida, USA. He has been consistently rated as a good teacher, having deep concern for his students. Research has been close to his heart. He received the R W Fahien Alumni Award for “Distinguished Professional Contributions” for the year 2003 by the Chemical Engineering department of University of Florida. He is the National Coordinator for a mega project funded by the MHRD, on Technology Enhanced Learning involving many technical institutions in the country.

Chennaionline's H Ramakrishnan interacted with him on a busy Saturday morning at the Conference hall of IITM. The unedited interview in its entirety is given below in two parts:

H Ramakrishnan: Good morning, Dr Ananth. Can you recall your childhood days?

M S Ananth: I was born in Tellichery in Kerala. My maternal grandfather was Principal of the Government Brennen College. Earlier he was the Professor of English in the Presidency College, Chennai. Those days the job was transferable.My grandmother had visited Sri Anantha Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram just before I was born and therefore I was named Ananthapadmanabhan.

Rama: And, your initials M S stand for...

M S Ananth: Madaboosi Santhanam. Santhanam is my father's name. Madaboosi is supposedly a village on the banks of Godavari river. It is reputed to be one of the villages that Sri Ramanuja was very fond of. My paternal grandfather hailed from a village called Teklur, sixty miles from Chennai.

Rama: You had your School education in....

M S Ananth: My education was totally in Chennai.

Rama: From 1972, you have been associated with the IIT in one capacity or the other.

M S Ananth: I joined IITM as an Asst. Professor. In due course I became Associate Professor, Professor and Head of the Department. I was Dean Academic courses and also Dean Research. I took over as Director in 2001.

Rama: When you were a College student, what did you want to become?

M S Ananth: This is very hard to say. Of all the subjects, I liked Physics best. But, my father had plans of starting a chemical industry. He felt Chemical engineering was a very exciting area. Chemical Engineering, despite its name has more Physics in it than Chemistry. Given the Chemistry, how do you scale up the processes for industrial production of Chemicals? That is the basic question. You are supposed to know some chemistry. But a very large fraction of the chemical engineers are more knowledgeable in Physics than in Chemistry.

Rama: So, do you mean to say that you have no regrets that you didn't do your physics?

M S Ananth: No regrets. I thinks these departments are only artificial barriers. You can pursue what you want to. My Ph D thesis in the University of Florida in the U S was actually in the area of Molecular Thermodynamics. It is a borderline area with Physics. In fact when I published my first paper, two days earlier a paper by a physicist in New York appeared on the same topic. Considerable overlap in the work without neither of us knowing that the other person was doing it.

Rama: Great minds think alike.

M S Ananth: Thank you.

Rama: What is Molecular Thermodynamics?

M S Ananth: Thermodynamics is a classical subject which has only two principles. One, the total energy of the world is a constant. The second principle essentially says that losses occur in conversion of thermal energy to work, due to disorder. This measures disorder. It says the disorder of the universe tends to a maximum. So, classical Thermodynamics on which the entire classical economy is based, aims at reducing or minimising the losses that occur when you convert energy to useful work. And, molecular thermodynamics provides you a mechanism by which these processes occur. Classical thermodynamics does not need the existence of molecules. As a theory, it is independent of the existence of molecules. Molecular thermodynamics can give you mechanistic explanations as to why these things happen.

Rama: Does Thermodynamics say that disorder increases with time?

M S Ananth: That is the concept theory. Disorder of the universe is a maximum. But the word disorder has to be carefully interpreted in science. For example. if you look through a kaleidoscope, you see those beads arranged. You see disorder. And when you shake it up, you can see a different disorder. You need a way by which you can quantify this disorder and say which is more disorderly than the other.

Rama: Do you mean to say, total disorder is total order?

M S Ananth: I think you are getting into tricky philosophical questions. Not really. You can measure disorder and at least in many systems you can quantitatively estimate it. In a sense, it is a measure of the number of options a system has. If you have more options, you have less knowledge of which state the system is in.

Rama: You have also been interested in Mathematical modeling. What does it mean?

M S Ananth: If you take a real system in the world, it is very complex.

Rama: I don't get you. Can you please simplify it?

M S Ananth: Suppose you try to describe, say the city of Chennai or something like that. Or, you want to find out as to what changes you should effect in order to produce other desirable changes....Yes, I agree, this is too complex a system. You can even take a much simpler system like a chemical reactor. These systems are naturally very complex. What you do is, you simplify these systems by looking at what you consider as the essential aspects of these systems that affect the outcomes that you want to influence. This is what man has been doing in all areas. .

Mathematical modeling is an iterative process by which you build a simple model and you ask as to what happens in this simple model- if a certain input occurs, what will be the output? Meanwhile, you also set up an experiment and measure the results. If the model predictions agree with the experiment, then you have a valid model. If they don't, you go back, change your assumptions modify the model, improve it, relax your assumptions, and come back and do the same process.

For example, you can model the weather conditions in Chennai and ask what are the conditions under which you can, if at all influence the weather. You can ask questions like this. This is a very complex problem. You have to take certain minimum things into account in order to do the model.

Rama: In effect, it is a kind of trial and error method.

M S Ananth: Yes, it is.

Rama: You have been into research for quite some time. Is there any ongoing project?

M S Ananth: Right now, since I took over as director, I don't really have the kind of time that is required. Research requires dedication. I do have one or two students working, but not for the Ph D, because I cannot give them the .kind of time that . I ought to give them. I have some B Tech, M tech students doing projects.

Rama: Industrial consultancy is another subject in which you are actively involved....

M S Ananth: Actually, the mission of IIT is four-fold. The central mission is teaching. The second is research. This is blue-sky research which is driven by curiosity. The third is sponsored research- sponsored by the industries or Government laboratories for specific purposes. For example we work on many projects with ISRO. The Space people have various problems that arise as part of their regular mission. These problems are referred to us. They could be in heat transfer, materials or could be on various aspects. Those are sponsored projects where the final results they want are reasonably clear. But you have to find out how you have to set up the system in order to achieve that result. Their centres work with us in the case of ISRO or in the case of Atomic energy. In many industrial cases, we do the research ourselves. They send somebody to work with us. They do give us inputs. We also do consultancy. Here, we already have the expertise. We are able to troubleshoot problems.

The fourth mission is to improve the state of technical education in the country. As Institutions of higher learning, set up with lots of funds, we have also the obligation to help sister institutions to improve their quality. So we interact a lot with the NITs, with other colleges. We also assist colleges to set up their labs.
We have several MOUs with colleges. .......

Rama: You are a champion of unlike minds coming togther. How far have you been able to achieve this? What is the role of IITs in shaping the future? There is a feeling that IT is given too much importance, relegating other real sciences to the background. What do you say? What are the salient features of IIT vision 2010? Do you believe in God?.....For these and many more questions, Dr. Ananth has interesting answers. Please see Part II.....

You can view excerpts from this interview in our video link