5/14/2025 Maddie Stover for Illinois Physics
The April 21 event at the Illini Union South Lounge brought celebrated poet Richard Blanco to campus.
Written by Maddie Stover for Illinois Physics
When the core of a book is the love shared between father and daughter—in this case, two renowned physicists—it is inevitable that their joy will reach far beyond the page. In the same way, the launch event on April 21 for Illinois Physics Professor Smitha Vishveshwara’s popular physics book Two Revolutions: Einstein’s Relativity and Quantum Physics: A Dialogue between Father and Daughter was bursting with light and anchored by the rich relationships that made the project possible. When the evening closed, I left the Illini Union’s South Lounge filled with the sense that I had been a part of something rare and special.
The evening marking the book’s debut, fittingly named Luminous, included readings from Two Revolutions, poetry readings from the celebrated U.S. inaugural poet Richard Blanco, and a book signing to conclude the event.
As I moved around the room photographing the book launch, I saw joy and connection unfolding throughout the audience and felt the shared sense of admiration and renewed inspiration. This didn’t surprise me: at Illinois Physics, Vishveshwara is known for the deep connections she forms with faculty, students, and staff alike. I focused my lens on Blanco as he read his full endorsement for Vishveshwara’s book—both authors trying to hold back tears as her twelve-year project full of heart came to fruition.
I felt the glow too. Vishveshwara, my mentor and collaborator for art projects in physics, was launching the soulful and genre-bending book I was hoping our field would someday see, and having the time of her life doing it. Her joy was contagious.
Throughout the evening, there is the sense of a larger, almost spiritual force at play. As poetry is read and breakthroughs of modern physics are recounted, there is a common understanding between the speakers and the audience that all knowledge is universal. That both disciplines—literature and science—are pulling from one underlying language that unites us all in our sense of wonder and belonging. Blanco articulates this best as he introduces Vishveshwara, reflecting on how physics and poetry both allow us to “look in the mirror and peer into the mysteries of who we are primordially.”
A Poetic Invocation
Luminous begins with remarks from Illinois Physics Department Head Professor Matthias Grosse Perdekamp, who expresses his pride and admiration for Vishveshwara’s book. Next, poet Chloé Firetto-Toomey, who is also Blanco’s author assistant, takes to the podium to read some of her award-winning lyrical poetry and to share comments on the journey of Two Revolutions. As she recounts anecdotes of the emotive emails sent between Vishveshwara and herself over the past ten years, the warmth and depth of their connection is palpable.
Firetto-Toomey’s poems, “Supermassive Black Hole” and “At the Mouth of a Canal in Key Largo,” center on the subject of light. She focuses on light not only to pay homage to modern physics but to invoke joy and wisdom for the readings to come.
Firetto-Toomey then introduces Blanco, who in 2013 gained national fame when he read his poem “One Today” at former President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Blanco later received the National Humanities Medal from former President Joseph Biden. Blanco is a civil engineer, which he says has benefited his poetry. In an interview, he notes similarities between left-brained critical reasoning skills and poetry: “To me poetry is a math problem—in the way that you are given an abstract emotion and you need to figure out how those bits of logic fit together to create some sort of response.”
After taking to the podium, Blanco notes how at home he feels in the interdisciplinary and collaborative environment of the University of Illinois. “I’ll keep on coming back to this university…” he says. “There’s something beautiful when all this stuff comes together. Something profoundly moving that makes us understand how we are all connected.”
Blanco reads from his poetry, for this occasion selecting works that draw inspiration from physics and engineering. In “Uncertain-Sea Principle,” Blanco uses Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle to form the structure of a contrapuntal poem where the narrator contemplates knowing themself on a walk along the beach. In “Love Poem According to Quantum Theory,” Blanco references the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which prompts the narrator to imagine a world where their lover knows a different version of them.
Blanco then introduces Vishveshwara and Two Revolutions. He talks about his excitement for the book and how his endorsement was the only one throughout his career that was offered by himself, not requested. He describes how it took him a long time to get through the book, because of how often he was brought to tears.
After playfully remarking that it is slightly against Vishveshwara’s wishes, Blanco tells the audience he will read his full endorsement. She blushes a bit from embarrassment, but he reassures her it was “one of the easiest endorsements he has ever written.”
He reads aloud from the back cover:
“This ground-breaking book places Smitha Vishveshwara in the light of such luminaries as Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, Jacques Cousteau and, of course, Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Gary Zukav, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. She and her co-author and late father, C.V. Vishveshwara, know the power of humanizing the sciences so that we may all understand ourselves: scientifically, spiritually, sociologically, emotionally, ecologically, and so on. Smitha accomplishes this through this genre-bending book where physics intersects with memoir, history, prayer, poetry, and the intimate art of letter writing… As a practicing engineer and poet all my adult life—I’m thrilled and grateful that a book like this has been born.”
Vishveshwara steps up to the podium and, after giving a heartfelt hug to Blanco, tells the story of how the two first met. As she speaks, Blanco turns away from the audience to look directly at her, smiling. She describes how Blanco visited the Urbana campus in 2014, where she told him about the book she had begun writing—Two Revolutions. She then pulled out her copy of Blanco’s The Prince of Los Cocuyos and revealed that he signed it to her during that visit, “Keep writing.”
She talks about how their relationship developed after his visit. Through reading one another’s deeply personal stories—for Vishveshwara it was Blanco’s The Prince of Los Cocuyos, for Blanco Two Revolutions—they came to form a meaningful understanding of one another. “We have laid the inner core of ourselves, completely vulnerable, on that page…and this is how we discovered each other.” Vishveshwara describes how they exchanged messages by way of Firetto-Toomey, the “radiant Hermes” of the trio.
Vishveshwara then thanks additional supporters of her writing process, including Illinois English Assistant Professor Amy Hassinger, a manuscript consultant for Two Revolutions, and Illinois Theater Teaching Professor Latrelle Bright. She talks about how both women were beacons and inspirations for her in her creative process, calling Hassinger her Beatrice in a reference to the guide in Dante’s Inferno.
Vishveshwara expresses gratitude to her family for anchoring her and providing support throughout her journey of writing this book, saying it was her dream to place the book in her mother and sister’s hands. Her spouse Madu Parthasarathy and her son Soma were an integral part of the creative and playful process of writing Two Revolutions.
Finally, she thanks her beloved father and co-author, her Appa, “an extraordinary being and a soul companion.”
Readings from Two Revolutions
“This is the story that beckons me and calls out to be recounted. And in sharing it with you, I am bound to grasp it more deeply and fall in love with it all the more.”
Vishveshwara and Blanco begin their reading of Two Revolutions with a passage that sets up the premise of the book. Vishveshwara and her father, a prominent black hole physicist, embark on an exciting journey together: he will explain in his letters Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and she in her letters will explain quantum mechanics. Vishveshwara reads, “This is the story that beckons me and calls out to be recounted. And in sharing it with you, I am bound to grasp it more deeply and fall in love with it all the more.”
In the next reading, C.V. Vishveshwara, read by Blanco, recounts memories of his graduate student days at Columbia University and gives a brief survey of Einstein's special relativity: “Here we are, my daughter, beholding a small piece of the lion's kingdom…a small peek into the history and physics of relativity.”
Vishveshwara then brings out two dancers from her theater production Quantum Voyages to perform choreography set to her next reading from Two Revolutions. In this letter to her father, Vishveshwara describes the life stages of the universe from the Big Bang to the formation of our Solar system. The dancers illuminate her words, giving physical expression to the cataclysmic events described in her narrative.
The last reading is a vignette from Two Revolutions. Vishveshwara calls her teenage son Soma and Firetto-Toomey onto the stage to help act out this passage. In this scene, three generations of Vishveshwaras—Smitha, her father C.V., and Soma—discuss the expanding universe in the comfort of their family home. The trio’s curiosity and creativity lead them deeper into the subject, culminating in the three riffing a song to express what the youngest Vishveshwara has just learned. The three sing in unison, “Hubble, Hubble, Hoyle, there’s trouble, Cosmos burn, its cauldron bubble.”
Words to Take With Us
To conclude the evening, about half of the audience queue up to have copies of Two Revolutions and Blanco’s Homeland of My Body and Looking for the Gulf Motel signed. Old friends and new acquaintances chat, sharing ideas and encouraging each other to pursue new projects, whether they be in physics, the arts, or both. Blanco and Vishveshwara have a heartfelt conversation with each person when they approach the table and write personalized messages in each book. Vishveshwara reaches across the signing table to hug friends and eager readers compare their author inscriptions.
In my copy of Looking for the Gulf Motel, which Vishveshwara had bought for me as a gift, Blanco writes, “Thank you for the work you do to help us understand each other,” alluding to my work in science communication that he had supported a few days earlier by appearing on my physics podcast.
I had ordered my copy of Two Revolutions about a month earlier, but it hadn’t yet shipped from Oxford University Press. I bring my notepad up to Vishveshwara and ask her to sign the paper, explaining that I would tape it into my copy once it arrives. She gives me a gentle yet definitive no, insisting that I bring her my copy once I receive it so she can write a proper inscription. She says to me, “You and I are in this for the long run.” I laugh, and we both smile in knowing agreement.
The evening draws to a close and the crowd filters out, but there is still a stir of energy in the room—the momentum of new ideas forming after an inspiring event. I meet up with my editor and writing mentor Siv Schwink near the now-cleared refreshments table to debrief the evening, and she shows me her inscription from Blanco, “Keep writing.” Later, she would share how moved and inspired she is by the sheer power of Vishveshwara’s creative work to unite people in creativity and childlike wonder. In particular, the book launch and Blanco’s visit had reignited her own creative leanings.
Two Revolutions and Blanco’s Homeland of My Body and Looking for the Gulf Motel are available for purchase at the Illini Union Bookstore. Two Revolutions is also available online through Oxford University Press.
Richard Blanco’s Illinois campus visit is sponsored and hosted by The Grainger College of Engineering, the Department of Physics, and the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST). It is co-hosted by the Krannert Center for Performing Arts, the Krannert Art Museum, the Center for Advanced Study, the Robert J. and Katherin Carr Visiting Authors Series, the Creative Writing Program, the Department of English, and the Department of Latina/Latino Studies.