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| Legends from the South |
| Sir C V Raman |
| “Why is the water of the Mediterranean Sea
such a dark shade of blue?” wondered a young scientist on board
a ship in 1921. Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was on his way
to Europe where he would represent Calcutta University in a
science meet. Some day he would unravel the answer to this apparently
simple question, and win the world’s most prestigious award
- the Nobel Prize. He was the first Asian scientist to win the
prize. His spirit of inquiry and devotion to science laid the
foundation for scientific research in India. |
| Early days |
| Born in an orthodox South Indian Brahmin family
on 7th November, 1888 at Thiruvanaikkaval near Tiruchirapalli
to Chandrasekhara Iyer and Parvathi Ammal, Raman stood first
in every class at school. He was a brilliant student from the
very start. He passed his matriculation at the age of 11, and
at 15 graduated in Physics from the Presidency College, Madras.
He was the only one to have passed in first class and he won
a gold medal too. He was keen to go abroad for higher studies
but on medical grounds he was advised against it. He later joined
MA at the Presidency College, Madras and chose Physics as his
main subject of study. |
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| From accounts to science |
| Science had already made an impression on him and
he began to write research papers for reputed science journals. Meanwhile,
respecting his parents’ wishes, he wrote the competitive examination
for the Indian Audit and Accounts Service and stood first in that
too. He joined as an Assistant Accountant General in the Finance Department
at Calcutta. His interest in science, however, did not decline. He
became a member of the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science
and spent hours after office at the laboratory of the Association,
working late, sometimes throughout the night. After ten years of government
service, Raman resigned to work as a Professor of Physics at the Calcutta
University. |
| The Raman Effect |
| To go back to his voyage to Europe, even as he strove
to find an answer to his question, it suddenly flashed on him that
the blue colour might be caused by the scattering of the sun’s light
by water molecules. Soon, he plunged into experiments, prepared a
research paper within a month and sent it to The Royal Society of
London. Next year, he published a lengthy article on the molecular
scattering of light. After a series of experiments on the sun’s rays
passing through water, transparent ice blocks and other media, using
a mercury arc and a spectrograph, he discovered some new lines in
the spectrum. These lines are now known as ‘Raman Lines’ and the discovery
was christened the ‘Raman Effect’. |
| Raman’s other interests |
| Raman had a keen interest in acoustics, the science
of sound; he did some outstanding research on vibrations and sound,
and on the theory of musical instruments. He inquired into how bowed
string instruments like violin and the veena could produce harmonious
music. His studies on the violin were quite extensive and he wrote
a remarkable book entitled, ‘On the Mechanical Theory of Vibrations
of Musical Instruments of the Violin Family’ a reference book for
musicians even today. |
| One of Raman’s significant discoveries was that
the mridangam and the tabla, unlike other percussion instruments,
possess harmonic overtones. He was such an authority on the subject
of vibration that he was invited to contribute an article in Handbook
der Physik, the German Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Physics. |
| Colour fascinated Raman. He loved trees, flowers,
anything that was colourful, be it a butterfly, a gem, crystals, or
a rose. He was particularly fond of the tail feathers of the peacock.
He also collected diamonds, which he called the ‘Prince of Solids’.
Raman’s study covered such different fields of science - Physics,
Geology, Biology and Physiology. |
| Raman’s advice to young scientists was to look at
the world around them and not to confine themselves in laboratories.
“The essence of science”, he would say, “is independent thinking and
hard work, not equipment”. |
| In 1934, Raman founded the Raman Research Institute
near Bangalore, where he worked till his death on November 20, 1970. |
| 1. |
Palit Professor of Physics, Calcutta University
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| 2. |
Director, Indian institute of Science, Bangalore |
| 3. |
Founder-Director, Raman Research Institute,
Bangalore |
| 4. |
President, Indian Science Congress |
| 5. |
President, Indian Academy of Sciences |
| 6. |
Fellow of the Royal Society |
| 7. |
Corresponding Member, Soviet Academy of Sciences |
| 8. |
Foreign Associate, Paris Academy of Science |
| 9. |
Honorary fellow of several scientific academies
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| 10. |
National Professor of India |
| 11. |
Member, American Optical Society |
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| 1. |
Nobel Prize |
| 2. |
Knighthood (Britain) |
| 3. |
Bharat Ratna |
| 4. |
Hughes Medal, Royal Society |
| 5. |
Franklin Medal, Philadelphia Institute |
| 6. |
Matteucci Medal, Rome |
| 7. |
International Lenin Prize |
| 8. |
Honorary doctorate awarded by the Universities
of Freiburg, Glasgow, Paris |
| 9. |
Honorary doctorate from several universities
in India |
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| One day in 1903, Professor Eliot of the Presidency
College, Madras, saw a little boy in his class. Thinking that he might
have wandered into the room by mistake, the Professor asked, “ Are
you a student of the BA class?” “Yes sir”, the boy answered. “Your
name?” “C V Raman”. To his astonishment he found out that the lad
who was hardly eleven, had already completed his matriculation with
flying colours. This little incident made the boy well known in college.
This young boy later became a world famous scientist. |
| The boy loved science, had great enthusiasm for
work, insatiable curiosity to learn, and great powers of concentration
and intelligence. He would set down questions like “How?” “Why?“ and
“Is this true?” on the margins of his textbooks. The works of Helmholtz
(1821-1891) and Raleigh (1842- 1919) on acoustics influenced Raman.
Even at 18, he had a research paper published in the ‘Philosophical
Magazine’ of England. Another paper was published in the scientific
journal ‘Nature’. |
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