Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 - 1920)

Srinivasa Ramanujan,  (born December 22, 1887, Erode, India—died April 26, 1920, Kumbakonam), Indian mathematician whose contributions to the theory of numbers include pioneering discoveries of the properties of the partition function.

When he was 15 years old, he obtained a copy of George Shoobridge Carr’s Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 2 vol. (1880–86). This collection of some 6,000 theorems (none of the material was newer than 1860) aroused his genius. Having verified the results in Carr’s book, Ramanujan went beyond it, developing his own theorems and ideas. In 1903 he secured a scholarship to the University of Madras but lost it the following year because he neglected all other studies in pursuit of mathematics.

Ramanujan continued his work, without employment and living in the poorest circumstances. After marrying in 1909 he began a search for permanent employment that culminated in an interview with a government official, Ramachandra Rao. Impressed by Ramanujan’s mathematical prowess, Rao supported his research for a time, but Ramanujan, unwilling to exist on charity, obtained a clerical post with the Madras Port Trust.

In 1911 Ramanujan published the first of his papers in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. His genius slowly gained recognition, and in 1913 he began a correspondence with the British mathematician Godfrey H. Hardy that led to a special scholarship from the University of Madras and a grant from Trinity College, Cambridge. Overcoming his religious objections, Ramanujan traveled to England in 1914, where Hardy tutored him and collaborated with him in some research.

Ramanujan’s knowledge of mathematics (most of which he had worked out for himself) was startling. Although he was almost completely unaware of modern developments in mathematics, his mastery ofcontinued fractions was unequaled by any living mathematician. He worked out the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, hypergeometric series, the functional equations of the zeta function, and his own theory of divergent series. On the other hand, he knew nothing of doubly periodic functions, the classical theory of quadratic forms, or Cauchy’s theorem, and he had only the most nebulous idea of what constitutes a mathematical proof. Though brilliant, many of his theorems on the theory of prime numbers were wrong.

In England Ramanujan made further advances, especially in the partition of numbers. His papers were published in English and European journals, and in 1918 he was elected to the Royal Society of London. In 1917 Ramanujan had contracted tuberculosis, but his condition improved sufficiently for him to return to India in 1919. He died the following year, generally unknown to the world at large but recognized by mathematicians as a phenomenal genius, without peer since Leonhard Euler (1707–83) and Carl Jacobi (1804–51).

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Bharat Ratna Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam, generally known as Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, was the 11th President of India (2002-07). He was elected against Lakshmi Sehgal in 2002 and had support from both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress, the two leading parties of Indian politics. By profession he is a scientist and administrator in India. He worked with Indian Space Research Organisation and Defense Research and Development Organisation as an aerospace engineer before becoming the President of India. His work on the development of launch vehicle and ballistic missile technology has earned him the name of the Missile Man of India. The Pokhran-II nuclear tests conducted in India in 1998 after the age-long original nuclear test of 1974 saw him in a pivotal political, organizational and technical role.

At present Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is the visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Indore; the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad; and the Indian Institute of Management, Shillong. He is a professor of Aerospace Engineering at the JSS University in Mysore and at the Anna University in Chennai, apart from being an adjunct and visiting faculty at other research and academic institutions in India. He is the honorary fellow of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and the Chancellor of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology at Thiruvananthapuram.

In his book India 2020, he has recommended plans to make the nation a fully developed one by the year 2020. His interaction with the student community and his motivational speeches have made him quite popular among the youth. In 2011 he launched a mission called 'What Can I Give Movement' aimed at the youth of India, which focused on defeating corruption in the country.

Detailed personal background

Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was born to a poor Tamil Muslim family on 15 October 1931 at Rameswaram in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. His father, Jainulabdeen, was a boat owner, and his mother, Ashiamma, was a homemaker. He started working at a young age to support his father. He received average grades in school but was seen as a hardworking and bright student with a strong desire to learn things. He used to study for hours, especially mathematics. He completed his schooling from Rameshwaram Elementary School. In 1954 he graduated in Physics from St. Joseph's College in Tiruchirappalli, which was then affiliated to the University of Madras. Thereafter in 1955 he moved to Madras and joined the Madras Institute of Technology and studied aerospace engineering. His dream was to become a fighter pilot but he was ranked ninth while the IAF offered only eight slots. He is a bachelor.

Achievements 

• After completing his graduation in 1960, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam joined as a scientist in Defense Research and Development Organization's Aeronautical Development Establishment.
• At the very start of his career he designed a small helicopter for the Indian army.
• Dr. Kalam served as the 11th President of India from 25 July 2002 to 25 July 2007.
• He is the third President of India to have received the prestigious Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour. It was earlier given to Dr. Sarvapali Radhakrishnan in 1954 and Dr. Zakir Hussain in 1963.
• He is the first bachelor and scientist to reside in the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
• Dr. Kalam was affectionately called the People's President.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Albert Einstein was born in Germany. He was a great physicist from America and a Nobel laureate. Einstein gained worldwide fame as he created extraordinary theories related to relativity and for his suggestions and premises that are related to the light’s particle nature. Einstein is one of the most renowned physicists of the twentieth century.

Einstein was born on 14th March, 1879 in Ulm, Germany. He spent his teenage years in Munich with his family. He and his family had an electronic equipment store. Einstein was not talkative in his childhood, and till the age of three, he didn’t talk much. But as a teenager, he had great interest in nature and had aptitude to comprehend tricky and complicated theories of arithmetic. Einstein knew geometry when he was 12 years old.

Einstein loved to be creative and innovative, therefore he loathed the boring and noncreative spirit in his school at Munich. Einstein left his school at the age of 15, as his family left Germany due to constant failure in their business. His family went to Milan and Einstein spent a year with them. It was then that he decided that, in order to survive, he has to create his own way out. He studied his secondary school from Switzerland and then joined Swiss National Polytechnic which was located in Zurich. Einstein didn’t like the teaching method there, so he bunked classes to study physics or play his violin. With the help of his classmate’s notes, he cleared his exams, and in 1900, he graduated. Einstein was not considered a good student by his teachers.

Einstein accepted the job of a professor and worked as an alternate teacher for about two years. He achieved the post of an examiner in the year 1902 in Bern at the office of Swiss patent. Einstein wedded his class mate Mileva Maric in 1903. He had two sons with her but they later divorced. After some years Einstein married someone else.

Early Scientific Publications

University of Zurich awarded Einstein doctorate in 1905 for his thesis on the different sizes and extent of molecules. In order to highlight the importance of physics, Einstein published three theoretical documents which stated the significance of physics in twentieth century. One of these papers was based on Brownian motion which discussed Einstein’s prediction related to the movement of particles that are present in any liquid. Later many experiments supported his predictions.

Einstein’s second publication discussed photoelectric effect. This paper comprised of innovative premises related to the light’s nature. Einstein gave the idea that light under some conditions contains some particles and the energy that a light particle contains is termed as photon. This photon and the radiation’s frequency are directly related. Its formula is E=hu where E is defined as the radiation’s energy and h is a constant defined as Planck’s constant and u is defined as radiation’s frequency. Einstein’s idea was rejected by everyone because it was against the conventional idea which stated that transfer of light energy is an ongoing process.

Robert Andrews, who was an American physicist, was surprised when Einstein’s theory was experimentally proven by him a decade later. Main focus of Einstein was to comprehend the nature of radiations that are electromagnetic. This led to the birth of a theory that will be a mix of light’s particle and wave nature. This theory too was comprehended by few scientists.

Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity

In 1905, Einstein’s third paper was published. It was based on dynamics of bodies in motion which later was called as the theory of relativity. The nature of radiation and matter and their interaction was the theme of discussion since the era of Newton. The view that laws of mechanics are essential is defined as the mechanical view of world, and the view that laws of electric are essential is defined as electromagnetic view of world. None of the view has been successful in giving a reliable elucidation for the interaction between matter and radiation, that is, the relation between radiation and matter is seen concurrently by the viewer at rest and a viewer travelling at consistent speed.

After observing these problems for a decade, Einstein came to the conclusion that the main problem was in the theory of measurement, and not in the theory related to matter. The main crux of Einstein’s special theory of relativity was the comprehension of the fact that all the dimensions of space and time are dependent on judgments that whether two events those are far off occur together. This hypothesis led Einstein towards the development of a theory which was based on two basic hypotheses: one that laws of physics are identical in all inertial positions. This is called as the principle of relativity. Second postulate is called as the principle of variance, according to this principle; the light’s speed is worldwide stable in a vacuum. Hence, Einstein was capable of providing reliable and accurate explanation of physical actions and measures in varying inertial positions without assuming about the matter or radiation’s nature, or their interaction. Practically, Einstein’s argument was not understood by any one.

Early Reactions to Einstein

Einstein’s work was not appreciated by others, not because it was very tough or difficult to understand, but the main problem that people faced was from Einstein’s viewpoint towards the theories and the affiliation between theory and experiment. Although Einstein believed that the sole foundation of information is experience and practice, he also maintained that scientific theories are developed by physical instinct, and the grounds on which theories are laid cannot be linked to an experiment rationally. According to Einstein, the definition of a good theory is the one that needs least number of postulates for physical confirmation. The innovation in Einstein’s postulates made it difficult for all his colleagues to understand his work.

Not many people supported Einstein. His biggest supporter was Max Planck who was a physicist from Germany. Einstein stayed at the patent agency for 4 years till the time he became famous in the physics society. He rapidly progressed upward in the educational German speaking world. In 1909, Einstein had his first meeting at the Zurich University. He then moved to the University of Prague dominated by German speaking people. He then came back to the Swiss Polytechnic in Zurich in 1912. Eventually Einstein was selected at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin as the director.

The General Theory of Relativity

In 1907 before Einstein left his job at patent office, he started working on the theory of relativity. He started by defining the equivalence principle which states that the accelerations of the frame of reference is equal to gravitational fields. For instance people while travelling in a lift are unable to make a decision that the force that they feel is felt by the elevator’s invariable acceleration or by the gravitation of the elevator. Until the year 1916, relativity theory was not available. According the general theory of relativity, the connection bodies had been attributed to the forces of gravity, are elaborated as the power of bodies on the space and time dimensions.

On the grounds on general theory of relativity, Einstein gave reasons for the changes in the orbital movement of planets that were not elaborated previously. He also told about the movement of starlight in the surroundings of a huge body like sun. Einstein became famous in 1919, when this prediction of Einstein was confirmed throughout the eclipse of the sun.

For the remaining lifetime of Einstein, he spent most of time to focus on his theory more. The last attempt of Einstein which was the theory related to the unified field was not completely successful, was an effort to comprehend the physical connections that included all weak, strong and electromagnetic interactions. This was all an adjustment of the geometry of space and time.

It was felt by most of Einstein’s classmates that these attempts were wrong. During 1915 and 1930 a new concept was in progress in the field of physics related to the basic trait of matter, also known as the quantum theory. According to this theory light has a dual character; it has the characteristics of both particle and wave, which Einstein previously considered compulsory. Also the uncertainty principle which says that accuracy in the process of measurement is restricted. In addition to this, it consisted of a new denial, at the basic level, of the idea of exact measurement. However, Einstein was not in favor of such ideas and he remained an opponent of these notions till his death.

World Citizen

Einstein became famous worldwide after 1919. He got many awards and prizes. In 1921, different scientific societies throughout the world awarded Einstein the Nobel Prize in physics. Wherever he travelled globally, that became an event. He was always followed by media. Einstein used media to add his views on society and politics.

Einstein supported pacifism and Zionism movement. While the World War I was taking place Einstein was one of the academics of Germany that criticized Germany’s participation in the war openly. He was attacked many times by Germans because of his continuous support toward Zionists and pacifist’s goals. Einstein’s theories including the relativity theory was criticized publically.

Einstein left Germany and went to United States when Hitler gained power. He got a place in New Jersey at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. On behalf of Zionism world Einstein continued his efforts. Einstein had to abandon pacifist because of the danger face by mankind put forward by the Nazi rule in Germany.

Einstein worked together with many other scientists in 1939 and wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, giving the option of making an atomic bomb and the possibility that the government of Germany was planning such route. As the letter was signed only by Einstein, helped in building the atomic bomb although Einstein had no participation in the whole work process and he was unaware about it.

Einstein participated actively in the international disarmament cause after the war. Einstein maintained his support with Zionism but he rejected the offer to become the president of Israel. In late 1940’s in US Einstein emphasized on the importance of making sacrifices to safeguard the freedom of politics. Einstein left this world on 18th April, 1955 in Princeton.

Some of Einstein’s efforts have been considered impractical. Einstein’s proposals had been very well managed and nicely planned and just like his theories that seemed motivated by the intuition of sound which comprised of wise and cautious observational assessment. Einstein was interested in politics and social issues too but it was science that really caught his interest and he believed that it was only the universe’s nature that mattered in the end. Relativity was found in his writings. He wrote, The Special and General Theory , About Zionism, Builders of the Universe, Why War?, The World as I See It, The Evolution of Physics and Out of My Later Years in the years 1916, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1938 and 1950 respectively. In the year 1987, Einstein’s papers had begun to get published in multiple volumes

Thomas Alva Edison (1847 - 1931)

Thomas Alva Edison is one of the greatest American inventors who held countless patents, majority of them related to electricity and power. While two of his most famous inventions are the incandescent lamp and the phonograph, arguably the most significant invention of Edison is considered to be organized research.

Early Life:

Edison was born on February 11, 1847 in the historic city of Milan (Ohio). His father was a versatile person and a man-of-all-work, while his mother was a teacher. Edison was mostly homeschooled by his mother. Edison became a salesman of fruit, paper and other goods on the Grand Trunk Railroad at a tender age of 12. With the help of his tiny handpress in a trash car, he wrote and published the Grand Trunk Herald in 1862, which was sent to 400 railroad employees. The same year Edison worked as a telegraph operator, trained by the father of a kid whose life he had saved. Edison was a tramp telegrapher, as he was exempted from military service due to his deafness. He was recruited in 1868 by Western Union Telegraph Company in Boston.

Early Conceptions:

Perhaps the first invention of Edison was a telegraph repeater in 1864 which worked automatically, while his earliest patent was registered for an electric vote recorder. He acquired partnership in a New York electrical company in 1869, where he honed the stock ticker and sold it. With all his money, Edison paid for his own factory in Newark, N.J., where he hired technicians to help him with the inventions. His dream was to create an “invention factory.” Almost 80 “earnest men,” including physicists, mathematicians and chemists, were among his collaborators. “Invention to order” made him good money at this place.

From 1870 to 1875 Edison devised many telegraphic advances including receivers, transmitters, the duplex, tape and automatic printers. He also collaborated in 1871 with Christopher Sholes, also known as “father of the typewriter,” to ameliorate the typing machine. Edison claimed to have made twelve typewriters at Newark in 1870. As a result, the Remington Company purchased his interests.

Edison’s carbon telegraph transmitter for Western Union brought a breakthrough for the creation of the Bell telephone. The money he got from Western Union for the transmitter was spent to establish a factory in Menlo Park, N.J. One more time, he used scientific talent to register over 300 patents in only 6 years. His electric pen (1877) developed stencils to produce copies.

Other Inventions and Contributions:

Probably his most impressive invention, the phonograph, was patented in 1877. By 1890 Edison had about 80 patents under his name, and that was pretty much the reason The Victor Company came into being.

To explore incandescence, Edison and his fellows, among them J. P. Morgan, developed the Edison Electric Light Company in 1878. Years later, the company became the General Electric Company. Edison invented the first practical incandescent lamp in 1879. With months of hard work researching metal filaments, Edison and his staff analyzed 6,000 organic fibers around the world and determined that the Japanese bamboo was ideal for mass production. Large scale production of these cheap lamps turned out to be profitable, hence the first fluorescent lamp was patented in 1896.

Edison made an amazing discovery in pure science, termed as the Edison Effect. He discovered in 1883 that electrons flowed from incandescent filaments. The lamp could function as a valve using a metal-plate insert, while taking only negative electricity. A method to transmit telegraphic “aerial” signals over short distances was patented by Edison in 1885. The “wireless” patent was later sold to Guglielmo Marconi.

The huge West Orange, N.J., factory was supervised from 1887 to 1931 by Edison. This was probably the world’s most cutting-edge research laboratory, and a forerunner to modern research and development laboratories, with experts systematically investigating and researching for the solution of problems.

The Edison battery, made perfect in 1910, used an alkaline electrolyte, and proved to be a superb storage device. The copper oxide battery, strikingly similar to modern dry cells, was modified in 1902.

The kinetograph, his motion picture camera, was able to photograph action on 50-foot strips of film, and produced about sixteen images per foot. A young assistant of Edison built a small laboratory in 1893 called the “Black Maria,” which was substantial in making the first Edison movies. The kinetoscope projector of 1893 finally displayed the films. The earliest commercial movie theater, a peepshow, was established in New York in 1884. After developing and modifying the projector of Thomas Armat in 1895, Edison commercialized it as the “Vitascope”.

The Edison Company created over 1,700 movies. Edison set the benchmark for talking pictures in 1904 by synchronizing movies with the phonograph. His cinemaphone adjusted the film speed to phonograph speed. The kinetophone projected talking pictures in 1913. The phonograph, behind the screen, was synchronized by pulleys and ropes with the projector. Edison brought forth many “talkies.”

The universal motor, which utilized alternating or direct current, appeared in 1907. The electric safety lantern, patented in 1914, significantly reduced casualties among miners. The same year Edison devised the telescribe, which unified characteristics of the telephone and dictating phonograph.

Services for the Government:

Edison presided the U.S. Navy Consulting Board throughout World War I and made 45 more inventions. These inventions included substitutes for antecedently imported chemicals (such as carbolic acid), a ship-telephone system, an underwater searchlight, defensive instruments against U-boats, among others. Later on, Edison launched the Naval Research Laboratory, the eminent American institution for research involving organized weapons.

Death:

This multi-genius died on Oct. 18, 1931 in West Orange, N.J. The laboratory buildings and equipment affiliated with Edison were upheld in Greenfield Village, Detroit, Michigan by Henry Ford, a friend and admirer.

Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Isaac Newton, universally considered to be one of the greatest and most influential scientists of all time, was an English mathematical and physicist, widely known for his outstanding contributions to physics, mathematics and optics. He also invented the calculus, and formulated the three laws of motion and the universal theory of gravitation. Newton proved that sunlight is the combination of several colors. He performed as the master of the Royal Mint in London and as the president of the Royal Society of London.

Early Life and Education:

Born on January 4, 1643, Newton was so frail at the time of his birth that the housemaids were unsure that the baby would live any longer. Isaac Sr. had died a few months before his birth, while his mother, Hannah Ayscough, married again to another man, Reverend Barnabas Smith, with whom she had three more children.

His mother left little Newton to live with her new husband while he was raised by his maternal grandmother. Newton had mostly a solitary childhood, though at 12, he joined the grammar school at Grantham. At school, once he had a fight with another boy, and whilst he was weaker, he still managed to win the fight and banged the opponent’s nose on the church wall. This kind of vindictive behavior endured throughout his lifetime.

Creating sundials, wooden objects and drawings were some of his favorite hobbies at school. He made a model windmill with a mouse on a treadmill for supplying power. A four-wheeled cart was also one of his creations which was powered by rotating a crank he had set up.

His mother called Newton back to manage the family farm when he was 17. He was never good at the job, though. A young Newton showed more interest in creating models and reading books. Luckily enough, his schoolmaster at Grantham, and his uncle William Ayscough, utterly impressed with Newton’s skill and determination, suggested his mother to let him stay at the school.

After finishing school in June 1661, Newton went on to join Cambridge University. There, he was annoyed with the traditional Aristotelian curriculum and shunned many of the assigned books, instead concentrating on his studies about science, mathematics and philosophy. He carefully and devotedly read books by Galileo, René Descartes,Euclid and Johannes Kepler. Within a year, he was able to record original insights in his notebooks.

Contributions and Achievements:

Not long after his graduation in 1665, the Cambridge closed down due to the plague epidemic for almost two years. Newton, therefore, returned to home where he came up with the calculus, which he termed as the “fluxional method.” Isaac Barrow, the Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge, was immensely impressed with his work. Newton got his master’s degree in 1668, and assumed Barrow’s position after his resignation. His lectures were said to be too difficult for the students.

His contributions during 1669 and the early 1770s were mostly related to optics. He put forward a theory of colors. He also constructed a reflecting telescope which magnified objects 40 times. For this invention, he was honored by The Royal Society, where he was made a member in January 1672. An article was published during this time about his theory of colors in February 1672. When Robert Hooke challenged him in an inappropriate manner, Newton was furios. He had experimented with colors extensively for several years and was confident about his peculiar ability and research.

Newton published his legendary publication “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” in 1687, a masterpiece that introduced the world to the three laws of motion and the universal principle of gravitation.

His another notable rival was Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz who claimed to have invented the calculus first. As Newton’s Principia came after Leibniz’s calculus, some started to think that Newton borrowed his method from Leibniz. The truth was that Newton had invented the calculus between 1665 and 1666, but he was reluctant to publish his work for years, while Leibniz introduced his work in 1684. Leibniz actually received letters from Newton in 1671 and 1676 regarding mathematics, and he was either directly or indirectly influenced by Newton. The feud settled down in 1716 after Leibniz’s death.

Newton is also credited with the generalized binomial theorem, valid for any exponent.

Later Years and Death:

Newton soon got bored with academia, so he became the warden of the Royal Mint in 1696. He revolutionized its operations and was made a master of the Mint in 1700. He was also selected as the president of the Royal Society from 1703 until his death. Queen Anne knighted Newton in 1705. In his final years, Newton suffered from several physical illnesses. He died on March 20, 1727 in London, England.

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858 - 1937)

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose is one of the most prominent first Indian scientists who proved by experimentation that both animals and plants share much in common. He demonstrated that plants are also sensitive to heat, cold, light, noise and various other external stimuli. Bose contrived a very sophisticated instrument called Crescograph which could record and observe the minute responses because of external stimulants. It was capable of magnifying the motion of plant tissues to about 10,000 times of their actual size, which found many similarities between plants and other living organisms.

Contributions and Early Life:

The central hall of the Royal Society in London was jam-packed withfamous scientists on May 10, 1901. Everyone seemed to be curious to know how Bose’s experiment will demonstrate that plants have feelings like other living beings and humans. Bose chose a plant whose mots were cautiously dipped up to its stem in a vessel holding the bromide solution. The salts of hydrobromic acid are considered a poison. He plugged in the instrument with the plant and viewed the lighted spot on a screen showing the movements of the plant, as its pulse beat, and the spot began to and fro movement similar to a pendulum. Within minutes, the spot vibrated in a violent manner and finally came to an abrupt stop. The whole thing was almost like a poisoned rat fighting against death. The plant had died due to the exposure to the poisonous bromide solution.

The event was greeted with much appreciation, however some physiologists were not content, and considered Bose as an intruder. They harshly knocked the experiment but Bose did not give up and was quite confident about his findings.

Using the Crescograph, he further researched the response of the plants to fertilizers, light rays and wireless waves. The instrument received widespread acclaim, particularly from the Path Congress of Science in 1900. Many physiologists also supported his findings later on, using more advanced instruments.

Jagadish Chandra Bose was born on 30 November, 1858 at Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh. He was raised in a home committed to pure Indian traditions and culture. He got his elementary education from a vernacular school, because his father thought that Bose should learn his own mother tongue, Bengali, before studying a foreign language like English. Bose attended Cambridge after studying physics at Calcutta University. He returned to India in 1884 after completing a B.Sc. degree from Cambridge University.

Later Life and Death:

Bose authored two illustrious books; ‘Response in the Living and Non-living’ (1902) and ‘The Nervous Mechanism of Plants’ (1926). He also extensively researched the behaviour of radiowaves. Mostly known as a plant physiologist, he was actually a physicist. Bose devised another instrument called ‘Coherer’, for detecting the radiowaves.

Prior to his death in 1937, Bose set up the Bose Institute at Calcutta. He was elected the Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920 for his amazing contributions and achievements.

C. V. Raman (1888 - 1970)

One of the most prominent Indian scientists in history, C.V. Raman was the first Indian person to win the Nobel Prize in science for his illustrious 1930 discovery, now commonly known as the “Raman Effect”. It is immensely surprising that Raman used an equipment worth merely Rs.200 to make this discovery. The Raman Effect is now examined with the help of equipment worth almost millions of rupees.One of the most prominent Indian scientists in history, C.V. Raman was the first Indian person to win the Nobel Prize in science for his illustrious 1930 discovery, now commonly known as the “Raman Effect”. It is immensely surprising that Raman used an equipment worth merely Rs.200 to make this discovery. The Raman Effect is now examined with the help of equipment worth almost millions of rupees.

Early Life:

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born at Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu on 7th November 1888 to a physics teacher. Raman was a very sharp student. After doing his matriculation at 12, he was supposed to go abroad for higher studies, but after medical examination, a British surgeon suggested against it. Raman instead attended Presidency College, Madras. After completing his graduation in 1904, and M.Sc. in Physics in 1907, Raman put through various significant researches in the field of physics. He studied the diffraction of light and his thesis on the subject was published in 1906.

Raman was made the Deputy Accountant General in Calcutta in 1907, after a successful Civil Service competitive examination. Very much occupied due to the job, he still managed to spare his evenings for scientific research at the laboratory of the Indian Association for Cultivation of Sciences. On certain occasions, he even spent the entire nights. Such was his passion that in 1917, he resigned from the position to become the Professor of Physics at Calcutta University.

Contributions and Achievements:

On a sea voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman curiously noticed the blue color of the glaciers and the Mediterranean. He was passionate to discover the reason of the blue color. Once Raman returned to India, he performed many experiments regarding the scattering of light from water and transparent blocks of ice. According to the results, he established the scientific explanation for the blue color of sea-water and sky.

There is a captivating event that served as the inspiration for the discovery of the Raman Effect. Raman was busy doing some work on a December evening in 1927, when his student, K.S. Krishnan (who later became the Director of the National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi), gave him the news that Professor Compton has won the Nobel Prize on scattering of X-rays. This led Raman to have some thoughts. He commented that if the Compton Effect is applicable for X-rays, it must also be true for light. He carried out some experiments to establish his opinion.

Raman employed monochromatic light from a mercury arc which penetrated transparent materials and was allowed to fall on a spectrograph to record its spectrum. During this, Raman detected some new lines in the spectrum which were later called ‘Raman Lines’. After a few months, Raman put forward his discovery of ‘Raman Effect’ in a meeting of scientists at Bangalore on March 16, 1928, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

The ‘Raman Effect’ is considered very significant in analyzing the molecular structure of chemical compounds. After a decade of its discovery, the structure of about 2000 compounds was studied. Thanks to the invention of the laser, the ‘Raman Effect’ has proved to be a very useful tool for scientists.

Some of Raman’s other interests were the physiology of human vision, the optics of colloids and the electrical and magnetic anisotropy.

Later Life and Death:

Sir C.V. Raman became the Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1924. A year later, he set up Raman Research Institute near Bangalore, where he continued the scientific research until his death which was caused by a strong heart attack on November 21, 1970. His sincere advice to aspiring scientists was that “scientific research needed independent thinking and hard work, not equipment.”