Page 31 - NIS English November16-30

C V Raman Personality

THE MASTER OF

LIGHT & SOUND

The year 1930 holds a special place in the annals of

Indian sciences as it was in this year that C V Raman
won the Noble Prize for Physics, the first Indian to do so

BORN: NOVEMBER 7, 1888, DIED: NOVEMBER 21, 1970

.V. Raman was born in a family of Indian Association for the Cultivation of
Cmodest means in Tiruchirapalli. Ra- Science in his spare time. In 1917, Ra-
man passed matriculation at the age of man quit his job and joined University of
11 and went on to complete his gradua- Calcutta as a Physics professor.
tion in Physics with Gold Medal when he By the time he visited England in When the Nobel
was barely 16-year-old. 1921 to attend a scientific conference, award was
While still in his teens, Raman pub- he had built a formidable global reputa- announced,
I saw it as
lished his first scientific paper on tion. It was on his way back home that a personal
diffraction of light in a British journal he made his first phenomenal discovery triumph, an
which explained the blue colour of sea achievement
When a beam of light passes through dethroning the explanation offered by for me and my
a transparent sample of a chemical Rayleigh. What won him the Nobel Prize collaborators...
compound, a small fraction of the in 1930 was, however, the eponymous I felt truly
light is scattered. A small part of Raman Scattering. The Raman Effect humble when
is such an important tool for analyzing
this scattered light has wavelengths the composition of liquids, gases, and I received the
different from that of the incident solids that in 1998 it was designated a Prize from King
light. This is called the Raman Effect National Historic Chemical Landmark Gustav; it was
a moment of
by the American Chemical Society. Ra- great emotion
'Philosophical Magazine in 1906. His man Scattering played a major role in but I could
next paper, on surface tension of liq- discovery of water by Chandrayan-1 on restrain myself.
uids, so impressed eminent scientist the Moon surface.
Rayleigh that he addressed Raman Raman also made significant forays C V RAMAN
courteously as "Professor". in the physics of musical sounds study-
In 1907, Raman joined the Indian Fi- ing the acoustics of various violin and
nance Service as Assistant Accountant related instruments. He was honoured
General having topped the exam. But with the Bharat Ratna in 1954. To com-
the change of career and the inade- memorate the discovery of the Raman
quate research facilities in the country Effect on February 28, 1928, the nation
failed to quieten the dauntless scientist celebrates every year National Science
in him for he continued research at the Day on that day.

New India Samachar 29