Physics and Earth Sciences Division

The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a unique institution devoted to the research, teaching and application of statistics, natural sciences and social sciences. The founder of the Institute, Professor P.C. Mahalanobis, decided to diversify its activities in a way that quantitative data on various sciences - social, biological, physical etc. could be generated within the Institute.

It was also foreseen that the diversification would result in a symbiotic relationship between statistics and other academic disciplines. With this in mind, many units in other disciplines were set up. These included Economics, Sociology, Physics, Chemistry, Electronics, Crop Science, Anthropometry and Human Genetics, Biometry, Biochemistry, Geology, etc.

In close collaboration with the statisticians of the Institute, scientists belonging to these units started conducting basic and applied research. Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis, believed that statisticians and scientists working in other branches of science in close proximity will greatly contribute to the development of statistical methods of data analysis.

He received strong support from Sir Ronald Fisher and Prof. J.B.S. Haldane, both of whom were closely associated with the Institute. Accordingly several science departments in different discipline established and started to flourish.

There are three units under this division