Every three years, the International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics Network (ICRANet) holds the Marcel Grossmann Meetings on Advances in General Relativity and Relativistic Astrophysics. This year, the meeting was hosted in Pakistan by COMSATS University Islamabad.
It is relevant to note that the First Grossmann Meeting was directed by Prof. Remo Ruffini at ICTP in 1975.
In 2021, it was the Sixteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting which continued for a week. Due to Covid-19 this year it is being held online with 1,200 participants from all over the World, stretching from New Zealand and Australia to Europe, America, Japan and China.
The inaugural day was started by the Director of ICRANet, Prof. Remo Ruffini, who discovered the first black hole in Pescara, Italy, with talks from speakers based in Russia, England, America, France, and a public lecture from Germany. The next session had two public lectures and was hosted by the COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Islamabad, Pakistan titled Ulugh Beg’s Universe.
It was dedicated to the medieval Muslim Astronomer, Ulugh Beg of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, grandson of the conqueror, Timur Lane and launched a series of conferences in the field of Relativistic Astrophysics, to be held in the Central Asian region, including Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The session consisted of two public lectures by Prof. Asghar Qadir, a Relativist from Pakistan, on the Development of Relativity, and Prof. Muhammad Bagheri,an Iranian historian of Astronomy who talked of Ulugh Beg’s Scientific School in Samarkand.
The convening of meeting is ongoing attempt for Pakistan to join ICRANet, with the ICRANet seat for Pakistan being hosted by CUI under the name “The Abdus Salam Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics”, which will be used by Pakistani relativity community developed over the past 50 years, with the help of The Abdus Salam International Centre for Relativistic Astrophysics (AS-ICTP).
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