Public Resentment Against The Chemistry Nobel Committee is Rising Sharply For Not Providing Due Credit To Professor Mrinal Thakur in 2022

New Delhi, October 11, 2022: Expressing their wrath at the denial of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2022 to Professor Mrinal Thakur, the Director of Photonic Materials Research Laboratory of Auburn University, USA, the Indian public took to street to caution that the action / inaction of the Nobel Committee of Chemistry is damaging the reputation of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS).

Professor Thakur was denied the Chemistry Nobel for 22 long years. While the Nobel Committee is in tacit agreement with Professor Thakur that the fundamental basis as given in the document preserved for the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is incorrect / nonfactual, they have not taken any initiative to make the requisite corrections and to provide due credit to Professor Thakur.

Professor Thakur stated that The Nobel Committee should not bow to evil powers guarding their scientific incorrectness, falsehood and plagiarism.

In 2000, the Chemistry Nobel was awarded to Heeger, MacDiarmid and Shirakawa for the discovery of “Conjugated Conductive Polymers”. However, The Nobel Committee did not recognize Professor Thakur who discovered “Nonconjugated” Conductive Polymers, around the same timeframe (1988).

In a statement here, Professor Thakur said in the 2022 Chemistry Nobel Prize decision, the Committee should have set priority on “Nonconjugated” conductive polymers. This is due to the reason that the Conjugated conductive polymer works already received credit in the 2000 Nobel Prize but discoveries of Professor Thakur on the “Nonconjugated” conductive polymers were not recognized.

What is more, the scientists who allegedly plagiarized Professor Thakur’s theory were credited with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2014) but Professor Thakur was left out.

Professor Thakur claimed the “Nonconjugated” conductive polymerscan absorb nuclear radiation and it can be used as a coating to stop leakage of radiation from nuclear reactors of all types. If the RSAS is really concerned about saving the humanity and global ecology, it should have recognized the discoveries of Professor Thakur and used his scholarship in developing anti-radiation protection shields made of the “Nonconjugated” conductive polymers. Such a shield can be used to absorb thyroid cancer causing radioactive iodine.

He cautioned that the recent rise in demands for the potassium-iodide pills throughout the European Union (EU) following fear of damage of nuclear reactors due to the Ukraine-Russia war should have been reason enough for the RSAS to give due recognition to the discovery of the “Nonconjugated Conductive Polymers” and their radiation-shielding capability.

At a critical juncture when nuclear installations are being involved in the Ukraine-Russia war causing heightened radiation fears, it is high time that the world powers come together to use the “Nonconjugated” Conductive Polymer-based shielding technology on all nuclear reactor facilities around the world to protect human lives and the environment.

Providing protection against nuclear radiation including radioactive iodine is one of the major applications of nonconjugated conductive polymers. Radioactive iodine is particularly dangerous since it remains as a vapor at ordinary temperature and can travel long distances over a very short time. It causes thyroid cancer and various other ailments. Applying the polymer shields around the nuclear reactors (standard and modular) is of critical need to protect lives and the environment – said Professor Thakur. The nuclear waste facilities which store spent nuclear fuel rods must also be insulated using this polymer technology.All countries having nuclear reactors should pay attention and take initiatives.

As it appears at the website of The Nobel Foundation,“key property of a conductive polymer is the presence of conjugated double bonds along the backbone of the polymer. In conjugation, the bonds between the carbon atoms are alternately single and double.” Also, “For a polymer to be able to conduct electric current it must consist alternately of single and double bonds between carbon atoms”.These fundamental statementsare nonfactual / incorrect since these disregard existence of “Nonconjugated” Conductive Polymers and their impact.

Professor Thakur used Coulomb Correlation theory which applies to both Nonconjugated and Conjugated Conductive Polymers while other theories developed only considering Conjugated Conductive Polymers may lead to incorrect conclusions. “Conjugated” conductive polymer indeed is a special case of “Nonconjugated” conductive polymer.

The Nobel Foundation (RSAS) is in tacit agreement with Professor Thakur. The Indian Press stressed that the Foundation must take immediate action to acknowledge and provide credit to Professor Thakur since it has been a long overdue.

The Indian Press warned that there is deep public discontent over the following critical issueswhich have remained unaddressed:

• No credit was given to Professor Thakur in 2000 Nobel Prize and afterwards for his discovery of “Nonconjugated Conductive Polymers.”
• Royal Swedish Academy is yet to correct the document preserved at the Nobel Foundation website despite repeated requests. The document states a polymer must be conjugated to be electrically conductive – which is nonfactual and the corresponding theory as given is incorrect,
• Professor Thakur’s research funding was abruptly stopped in 2003 as he brought up the incorrectness and inequity regarding the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• Professor Thakur stakes claim to the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry as well since “Super-resolved Fluorescence Microscopy” (2014 Nobel in Chemistry)is primarily based on earlier nonlinear optical experimental and theoretical studies performed by Professor Thakur and colleagues on organic materials.

Professor Thakur did not receive credit in the 2000 Nobel Prize. Again in 2014, the Nobel Committee did not give him credit for his equation and the underlying fundamental experimental and theoretical works in nonlinear optics that were critical for super-resolved fluorescence microscopy!

Scientific Explanation of Thakur’s Equation

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Betzig, Hell and Moerner for their works on “Super-Resolved Fluorescence Microscopy.”

The central equation used in this work is based on nonlinear optics works and phase-space-filling model developed by Professor Thakur and coworkers. No reference of that is given in the 2014 Nobel document preserved at the Nobel Foundation website.

Detailed nonlinear optical coefficients as a function of wavelength, excited-state lifetimes, two-photon absorption and the detailed saturation dynamics have all been measured by Professor Thakur and coworkers using femtosecond-duration pulses and their theoretical interpretations have been established.The excited state lifetime as measured is about 1.8 ps. In the off-resonant domain the response is instantaneous.

As discussed in such reports, (phase-space filling model applied to PTS-polydiacetylene crystal), the fractional change in oscillator strength, δf/f is related to the number fraction of electrons (excitons) involved in the transitions is as given in the following:δf/f = – N/N_swhere N_s is the saturation density.

For organic materials, energy levels remain essentially unchanged when light is incident on it. Using the phase-space filling model as above verified by detailed experimental measurements (Thakur et al. 1985-88), the equation relating the resolution and laser light intensity (Thakur’s Equation) that one arrives at isΔ = λ/(2nsinα(1 + I/I_s)^1/2). HereΔ stands for resolution, I stands for laser light intensity, λ is wavelength, n is refractive index,α is semi-aperture angle and I_sis saturation intensity. More details of the equation have recently appeared (Thakur, J. Macromol. Sci., PAC 2016 and references therein).

This is the central equation, Equation 3 given in page 5 of the 2014 Nobel document preserved at the Nobel Foundation website and is derived based on phase-space filling model and the statistics involved in the emission process. No reference for this equation was provided in that document.Professor Thakur received no credit from RSAS in 2014 Nobel Prize!