Modern figure
Piara Singh Gill
ਪਿਆਰਾ ਸਿੰਘ ਗਿੱਲپیارا سنگھ گل
Nuclear physicist from Hoshiarpur district who studied cosmic rays with Arthur Compton and led India's science institutions.
Piara Singh Gill grew up in a village in Hoshiarpur district, worked his way through college in the United States and earned his doctorate at Chicago under the Nobel prize-winner Arthur Compton, studying cosmic rays, the particles that rain down on the earth from space.
Back in India he set up cosmic-ray research high in the Kashmir mountains, taught at Aligarh and Panjab University, and later headed the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation in Chandigarh.