- Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
C. V. Raman was born at Tiruchirapalli in South India on November 7th, 1888.
Raman entered Presidency College, Madras, in 1902, and in 1904 passed his
B.A. examination, winning the first place and the gold medal in physics; in
1907 he gained his M.A. degree, obtaining the highest distinction. Raman spent
15 years as a Professor in Physics at Calcutta University (1917-32), and 15
years as a Professor in Physics at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
(1933-48). In 1948, Raman became the Director of the Raman Institute of Research
at Bangalore, established and endowed by himself. On February 28, 1930, Chandrasekhar
Venkata Raman discovered the radiation effect involving the inelastic scattering
of light that would bear his name- the Raman effect - and which would win
him Asia's first Nobel Prize in any Science subject, in 1930. Raman's research
interests were in optics and acoustics - the two fields of investigation to
which he dedicated his entire career. The main investigations carried out
by Raman were: his experimental and theoretical studies on the diffraction
of light by acoustic waves of ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies (published
1934-1942), and those on the effects produced by X-rays on infrared vibrations
in crystals exposed to ordinary light. Raman was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society early in his career (1924), and was knighted in 1929. Besides, Raman
was honoured with a large number of honorary doctorates and memberships of
scientific societies. C. V. Raman passed away in 1970.
- Prof. Subramanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Born in Lahore, India, in 1910, theoretical astrophysicist Chandrasekhar was
elected to the National Acadamy of Sciences (USA) only two years after he
became a US citizen in 1953. Chandrasekhar was noted for his work in the field
of stellar evolution, and in the early 1930s he was the first to theorize
that a collapsing massive star would become an object so dense that not even
light could escape it. Although this finding was greeted with some skepticism
at the time it was announced, it went on to form the foundation of the theory
of black holes, and eventually earned Chandrasekhar a shared Nobel Prize in
physics for 1983. Chandrashekhar estimated the limit (Chandrashekhar limit)
on the size of a highly dense variety of star known as 'White Dwarf'. If this
star's mass exceeds the limit, it explodes to become a bright supernova. He
also made significant contributions to understanding the atmosphere of stars
and the way matter and motion are distributed among the stars in the galaxy.
Chandrashekar, who recieved the Nobel Prize in 1983, was honoured this year
when the largest x-ray telescope aboard the US Space Shuttle was named 'Chandra
Telescope'. In addition to his work on star degeneration, Chandrasekhar contributed
important theorems on the stability of cosmic masses in the presence of gravitation,
rotation, and magnetic fields; this work proved to be crucial for the understanding
of the spiral structure of galaxies. From the time he came to the US in 1936
until his death in 1995, Chandrasekhar was affiliated with the University
of Chicago and its Yerkes Observatory. Chandrasekhar passed away in 1995.
- Prof. Satyendranath Bose (1894-1974) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Satyendranath Bose was born on the first of January 1894 in Calcutta. He studied
at the University of Calcutta, then taught there in 1916, taught at the University
of Dacca (1921-45), then returned to Calcutta (1945-56). He did important
work in quantum theory, in particular on Planck.html's black body radiation
law. Bose sent his work Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta (1924)
to Einstein. He wrote a covering letter saying:- Respected Sir, I have ventured
to send you the accompanying article for your perusal and opinion. You will
see that I have tried to deduce the coefficient .. in Planck's law independent
of classical electrodynamics. It was enthusiastically endorsed by Einstein
who saw at once that Bose had removed a major objection against light quanta.
The paper was translated into German by Einstein and submitted with a strong
recommendation to the Zeitschrift für Physik. Bose also published on statistical
mechanics leading to the Bose-Einstein statistics. Dirac coined the term boson
for particles obeying these statistics. Satyendranath Bose and Albert Einstein
published a series of papers on the physics of particles with integer spins
(bosons). The duo predicted that if a collection of bosonic atoms could be
cooled to the point that each one reaches its lowest possible quantum mechanical
energy, a Bose-Einstein condensate would result. In this state, atoms would
lose their individual properties and would act collectively as a single entity.
Satyendranath Bose passed away in 1974.
- Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan (1887-1920) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Srinivas Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in his grandmother's house
in Erode, Tamil Nadu. In January 1913 Ramanujan wrote to G. H. Hardy having
seen a copy of his 1910 book Orders of Infinity. In Ramanujan's historic first
letter to Hardy, he introduced himself and his work of about 100 theorems.
In 1914, Hardy brought Ramanujan to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin an
extraordinary collaboration between two mathematicians. On 16 March, 1916
Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research
(the degree was called a Ph.D. from 1920). Ramanujan's dissertation was on
Highly Composite Numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in
England. Ramanujan would go on to publish 26 papers in British journals. On
May 2, 1918, Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan was elected Fellow of the Royal Society
of London. He would be the first Indian and first Asian to be elected so.
Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of India's greatest mathematical geniuses. He
made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked
on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series. Ramanujan's
work on partial sums and products of hypergeometric series led to major development
in the topic. He gave his name to two constants, the Landau-Ramanujan constant
and the Nielsen-Ramanujan constant. Ramanujan died on April 26, 1920 at the
age of 33 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. Before he died, Ramanujan wrote down
about 600 theorems on loose sheets of paper, which were discovered and published
only in 1976 as the "Lost Notebook" of Ramanujan.
- Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Born in Mymensingh, Bengal, in November 30, 1858, Bose went to England to
study medicine at the University of London. He returned to India with a B.A
degree from Cambridge and a B.Sc from the London University and started experiments
involving refraction, diffraction and polarisation. Sir J.C. Bose did his
original scientific work in the area of Microwaves. He produced extremely
short waves and done considerable improvement upon Hertz's detector of electric
waves. He produced a compact appratus for generating electromagnetic waves
of wavelengths 25 to 5 mm and studying their quasioptical properties, such
as refraction, polarization and double refraction. Bose turned his attention
from electromagnetic waves to response phenomena in plants by the end of the
19th century. Bose's research on response in living and non-living led to
some significant findings: in some animal tissues like muscles, stimulation
produces change in form as well as electrical excitation, while in other tissues
(nerves or retina), stimulation by light produces electric changes only but
no change of form. He showed that not only animal but vegetable tissues under
different kinds of stimuli-mechanical, application of heat, electric shock,
chemicals, drugs- produce similar electric responses. He was appointed Professor
Emeritus after he retired from the Presidency College in 1915. The Bose Institute
was founded a couple of years later. He was also elected Fellow of the Royal
Society in 1920. In 1937 Jagdish Chandra Bose passed away at Giridih in Bihar.
- Meghnad Saha (1893-1956) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Meghnad Saha was born on October 6, 1893 in Sheoratali, a village in the District
of Dacca, now in Bangladesh. In 1911, he came to Calcutta to study in Presidency
College. Meghnad became famous after his article on solar chromosphere ion'
was published in 'Astrophysical journal' in 1920. He came to be recognised
as a scientist of substance. In 1920, he went to England to prove his theory
before the global scientific community. He went to Prof. Alexander Fowler
and Prof. Walter Nurnst of Germany. Two years later, he came back and joined
the University of Calcutta as the Khaira Professor. In 1927, Meghnad was elected
as a fellow of London's Royal Society.He invented an instrument to measure
the weight and pressure of solar rays. He produced the famous equation which
he called 'equation of the reaction - isobar for ionization' which later became
known as Saha's "Thermo-Ionization Equation". Saha was the leading spirit
in organizing the scientific societies like the 'National Academy of Science'
(1930), 'Indian Institute of Science' (1935) and the 'Indian Association for
the Cultivation of Science' (1944). The lasting memorial to him is the 'Saha
Institute of Nuclear Physics' founded in 1943 in Calcutta. He was the chief
architect of river planning in India. He prepared the original plan for Damodar
Valley Project. Saha passed away in 1956.
- Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha (1906-1966) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Homi Jehangir Bhabha was born in an aristocratic family in Bombay in 1909.
He passed the Senior Cambridge Examination when he was 16 and went to Cambridge
to study mechanical engineering. He was influenced by his mathematics teacher
Paul Dirac, who initiated him into mathematics and theoretical physics. Bhabha
was in India when war broke out in Europe. In 1940, at the behest of C.V.
Raman, director of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Bhabha joined
the institute as a reader in physics. When Bhabha began the study of cosmic
rays, he realised the need for an institute devoted to fundamental research.
Helped with funds from JRD Tata, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental
Research in Bombay in 1945. Bhabha with Hitler,rpoposed the cascade theory
which explains why electrons are found in cosmic rays at sea level.Electrons
from outer space can't penetrate the atmosphere to reach sea level. Bhabhba
proposed that high energy electrons passing through matter produce gamma rays,which
subsequently produce pairs of electrons and positrons.They,in turn would emit
gamma rays, creating a huge shower .This goes on until the energy is exhausted.Bhabha
also calculated the cross section (probability)of scattering of electrons
and positrons in a material medium (habha scattering).He said the measured
lifetime of meson in flight is affected by the time dilation predicted by
Einstein's thoery of relativity.Bhabha was soon a force to reckon with in
international science circles. His research in atomic energy is of great importance.
He is considered as the founder and architect of India's atomic energy programme.
He served as the president of the UN conference on peaceful uses of atomic
energy in 1955 and as president of the International Union of Pure and Applied
Physics from 1960 to 63. He passed away in a plane crash on Mont Blanc on
January 24, 1966.
- Dr. Vikram A Sarabhai (1919-1971) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Vikram Sarabhai was born on 12 August 1919 at Ahmedabad. After passing Inter-Science
from Gujarat College in Ahmedabad, he joined St. John's College, Cambridge
(UK) where he took his Tripos in Natural Sciences in 1939. The outbreak of
World War-II necessitated his return to India where he took up Cosmic-ray
research under the guidance of the Nobel Laureate Sir C. V. Raman at the Indian
Institute of Science in Bangalore. In 1947, he was awarded doctorate by Cambridge
University for his thesis, "Cosmic Ray Investigations in Tropical Latitudes".
On his return to India, Dr.Sarabhai founded the Physical Research Laboratory
(PRL) in November 1947 at Ahmedabad where he continued his scientific activities.
Realising the need for professional management education in India, he founded
Indian Institute of Management (IIM) in 1962 and directed it until 1965. In
1962, he took over the responsibility of organising space research in India
as Chairman of Indian National Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR). He
directed setting up of the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station(TERLS)
at Trivandrum and initiated a programme to fabricate sounding rockets in India.
In 1966, he was appointed the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission. He
drew up plans to take education to remote villages through satellite communication,
implemented under the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE).
Sarabhai was awarded the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award for Physics in 1962
and was honoured with Padma Bhushan in 1966. Padma Vibhushan was awarded to
him posthumously. He was also a member and Chairperson of several national
and international committees. This great scientist widely recognised internationally
in space and nuclear research expired prematurely in his sleep on 30 December
1971, while visiting Thumba Equatorial Rocket Lunching Station (TERLS) Trivandrum.
- Prof. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (1894-1958) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Born in Bhera, West Punjab on 21st February 1894, Bhatanagar grew up with
an interest in science and engineering. After earning his M.Sc. from Punjab
University and went to London University for his D.Sc. While studying for
the D.Sc. he did excellent research on emulsions and colloids. Following this,
he was privileged to work under the guidance of Prof. Haber at the Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute in Berlin and later, with Prof. Freundlich, an expert on
Colloids. Returning to India, he became a Professor of Chemistry at the Banaras
Hindu University from 1921-24, after which he worked as the Director of the
University Chemical Laboratories in Lahore from 1924-40. During this period,
his research and efforts enabled him to make significant contributions in
physical chemistry, with a special focus on Magneto-chemistry. From contributions
range from his theories on emulsions and colloids to research on industrial
chemistry (making wax colourless, refining kerosene to increase the flame
height and utilising petroleum waste) to magneto-chemistry, to installing
oil refineries, plants to produce newer metals such as titanium and zirconium
and planning surveys for atomic minerals and petroleum deposits. Some of his
posts include becoming the first Director General of the Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research from 1940 till his death and Fellow of the Royal Society
of London in 1943. In 1946, Dr. Bhatnagar introduced Pt. Nehru, then the head
of the Interim Government, to his own ideas about science development in India,
in the hope of making them a reality. With the help of industrialists and
his own research work, he was successful in opening a chain of National Research
Laboratories in India. After his death on 1st January 1955, the Bhatanagar
Memorial Award for instituted in 1958.
- Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray (1861-1944) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray was born on 2nd August 1861 in Raruli-Katipara,
a village in the District of Khulna (now in Bangla Desh). Prafulla Chandra
Ray is respected as the father of the Indian chemical industry. He succeeded
in isolating mercurous nitrite, which brought him fame and recognition.Later,Ray
and his co-workers stuidied compounds of metallic elements with organic sulphur
derivatives,particularly mercaptans and sulphides.IN, addition they suceeded
in preparing and characterising various compounds of zinc,cadmium,mercuric
iodide,etc. He worked hard to set up,at a surprisingly low cost,'The bengal
Chemicals And Pharmaciutical Works Ltd.'using locally available materials.
Equally importantly,he inspired a generation of young chemists in India thereby
biulding up an Indian school of chemistry. Ray strove for the development
of the state of bengal.THe monumental work "History of Hindu Chemistry"bears
testimony to his knowledge of history and science and love of literature.Ray
rightly earned the title 'Acharya' for his service and sacrifice for science,society
and chemical industry in India. Ray's popular book is "Life and Experince
OF A Bengali Chemist".He was an embodiment of Indian culture and wanted to
re-born only in India to complete the unfinished services to his countrymen.
Ray passed away on 16th June 1944.
- Dr. Hargovind Khorana (1922-) FIND
MORE ABOUT HIM...
Dr. Hargovind Khorana was born on 9 January 1922 at Raipur, Punjab (now in
Pakistan). He obtained his M.Sc. Honours in Organic Chemistry from the Punjab
University in 1945 and later received his Ph. D. from the University of Liverpool
in England. The most fruitful and creative decade of Dr. Khorana’s career
began in 1960 when he joined the University of Wisconsin as Professor and
co-Director of the Institute of Enzyme Research and Professor of Biochemistry
(1962-70). In 1970 he was appointed Professor of Biology and Chemistry at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. He was elected
a member of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington as well as a Fellow
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1971 he became
a foreign member of USSR Academy of Sciences and in 1974 an Honorary Fellow
of the Indian Chemical Society. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1968
sharing it with M.W. Nuremberg and R.W. Holley for interpreting the genetic
code and analysing its function in protein synthesis. The other awards conferred
on him include Distinguished Service Awards. Watumull Foundation, Honolulu,
Hawaii (1968); American Academy of Achievement Award, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
(1971); Padma Vibushan, Presidential Award, India (1972); J.C.Bose Medal,
Bose Institute, Calcutta (1972) and Willard Gibbs medal of the Chicago Section
of American Chemical Society (1973-74). His researches embrace many fields
and have gone a long way in answering one of the most critical and controversial
issues of biology, i.e., the role of heredity and environment. His work, which
is an important scientific landmark of the twentieth century, has brought
closer the day when synthetic DNA may be introduced into the defective human
tissues to bring about their repair or treat mentally retarded people and
change them into more intelligent and healthy human beings. His synthesis
of RNA, capable of replication in laboratory, is a step towards the creation
of life artificially.
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