Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

. V. Raman

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In this Indian name, the name "Chandrasekhara" is a patronymic, not a family name, and the person should be referred to by the given name, "Venkata Raman".

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
Born	7 November 1888(1888-11-07) Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu
Died	21 November 1970 (aged 82) Bangaluru, Karnataka, India
Nationality	India
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Indian Finance Department Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science Indian Institute of Science
Alma mater	Presidency College
Doctoral students	G. N. Ramachandran
Known for	Raman effect
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physics (1930) Bharat Ratna Lenin Peace Prize
Religious stance	Hindu

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, FRS (Kannada: ಸಿ.ವಿ. ರಾಮನ್) (Tamil: சந்திரசேகர வெங்கடராமன) (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970) was an Indian physicist and Nobel laureate in physics recognised for his work on the molecular scattering of light and for the discovery of the Raman effect, which is named after him.

Contents [hide] 1 Biography 1.1 Early years 1.2 Career 1.3 Personal life 2 Honours and awards 3 Publications 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links

Introduction

The genius who won the Nobel Prize for Physics, with simple equipment barely worth RS. 300. He was the first Asian scientist to win the Nobel Prize. He was a man of boundless curiosity and a lively sense of humor. His spirit of inquiry and devotion to science laid the foundations for scientific research in India. And he won honor as a scientist and affection as a teacher and a man.

Author - A.Krishna Bhatt

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman was born to a Hindu family in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. His mother tongue was Tamil. At an early age Raman moved to the city of Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics, so he grew up in an academic atmosphere. His nephew Subramanyan Chandrasekhar also won the Nobel Prize in Physics, in 1983.

Raman entered Presidency College, Madras, in 1902, and in 1904 gained his Bsc, winning the first place and the gold medal in physics. In 1907 he gained his Msc, obtaining the highest distinctions. He joined the Indian Finance Department as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta.

[edit] Career

In 1917 Raman resigned from his government service and took up the newly created Palit Professorship in Physics at the University of Calcutta. At the same time, he continued doing research at the IACS, where he became the Honorary Secretary. Raman used to refer to this period as the golden era of his career. Many talented students gathered around him at the IACS and the University of Calcutta.

Energy level diagram showing the states involved in Raman signal.

On February 28, 1928, through his experiments on the scattering of light, he discovered the Raman effect. It was instantly clear that this discovery was an important one. It gave further proof of the quantum nature of light. Raman spectroscopy came to be based on this phenomenon. Rutherford referred to it his presidential address to the Royal Society in 1929. Raman was president of the 16th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1929. He was conferred a knighthood, and medals and honorary doctorates by various universities. Raman was confident of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics as well, and was disappointed when the Nobel Prize went to Richardson in 1928 and to de Broglie in 1929. He was so confident of winning the prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even though the awards were to be announced in November, and would scan each day's newspaper for announcement of the prize, tossing it away if it did not carry the news.^[1] He did eventually win the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him".^[2] He was the first Asian and first non-White to get any Nobel Prize in Science. Before him Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore (also Indian) had received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the basis of superposition velocities. He was also the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and the mridangam.

In 1934 Raman became the director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, where two years later he continued as a professor of physics. Other 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.

He also started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. in 1943 along with Dr. Krishnamurthy. The Company during its 60 year history, established 4 factories in Southern India. In 1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India.

In 1948 Raman, through studying the spectroscopic behavior of crystals, approached in a new manner fundamental problems of crystal dynamics. He dealt with the structure and properties of diamond, the structure and optical behavior of numerous iridescent substances (labradorite, pearly felspar, agate, opal, and pearls). Among his other interests were the optics of colloids, electrical and magnetic anisotropy, and the physiology of human vision.

[edit] Personal life

Raman retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1948 and a year later he established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore Karnataka, serving as its director and remained active there until his death in 1970, in Bangalore, Karnataka, at the age of 82.

He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal with whom he had one son, Radhakrishnan.

[edit] Honours and awards

Raman was honoured with a large number of honorary doctorates and memberships of scientific societies. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society early in his career (1924) and knighted in 1929. In 1930 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1954 he was awarded the Bharat Ratna. He was also awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1957.

India celebrates National Science Day on 28 February of every year to commemorate the discovery of the Raman effect in 1928.

Biography:

Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman, popularly known as C.V. Raman, was born in Thiruchinapalli, in Tamil Nadu, India on November 7, 1888. He was the second of children of Chandrasekhar Iyer and Parvathi Ammal. His father was a professor of mathematics. At an early age, Raman moved to the city of Visakhapatnam, in the present day state of Andhra Pradesh, where his father accepted a position at the Mrs. A.V.N. College. Raman's academic brilliance was established at a very young age. At eleven, he finished his secondary school education and entered Mrs. A.V.N. College and two years later moved to the prestigious Presidency College in Madras (present name, Chennai). When he was fifteen, he finished at the head of the class to receive B.A. with honors in Physics and English. During that time students who did well academically were typically sent abroad (England) for further studies. Because of Raman's poor health he was not allowed to go abroad and he continued his studies at the Presidency college.In 1907, barely seventeen, Raman again graduated at the top of his class and received his M.A. with honors. In the same year he married Lokasundari.

At the time of Raman's graduation, there were few opportunities for scientists in India. This forced Raman to accept a position with the Indian Civil Services as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. While there, he was able to sustain his interest in science by working, in his spare time, in the laboratories of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. He studied the physics of stringed instruments and Indian drums.

In 1917, with his scientific standing established in India, Raman was offered the position of Sir Taraknath Palit Professorship of Physics at Calcutta university, where he stayed for the next fifteen years. During his tenure there, he received world wide recognition for his work in optics and scattering of light. He was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1924 and the British made him a knight of the British Empire in 1929. The following year he was honored with the prestigious Hughes medal from the Royal Society. In 1930, for the first time in its history, an Indian scholar, educated entirely in India has received the highest honor in science, the Nobel Prize in Physics.

In 1934, Raman became the director of the newly established Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore, where two years later he continued as a professor of physics. In 1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India. He retired from the Indian Institute in 1948 and a year later he established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, served as its director and remained active there until his death on November 21, 1970, at the age of eighty two. Raman was honored with the highest award, the "Bharat Ratna"(Jewel of India), by the Government of India.

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Bibliography:

General:

Chamberland, Dennis, "Nobel Prize", edited by , pages 373-380

Mehra, Jagdish, "Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman", in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillespie, New York, Charles Scribner and Sons

Blaniped, Williams A., "Pioneer Scientists in Pre-Independent India", Physics Today, 39: page 36 (May, 1986)

Jayaraman, Aiyasami and Ramdas, Anant Krishna, "Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman", Physics Today, 56: p56-64 (August, 1988)

Weber, Robert L, "Pioneers of Science: Nobel Prize winners in Physics:, eidted by Lenihan, J.M.A., Bristol, Adam Higler, 1980

Physics:

"Dynamical Theory of the Motion of Bowed Strings", Bulletin, Indian Association for the Advancement of Science, 1914

"On the molecular scattering of light in water and the colour of the sea", Proceedings of the Royal Society, 1922

"A new type of Secondary Radiation", Nature, 1928

"A new radiation", Indian Journal of Physics, 1928

Aspects of Science, 1948

The New Physics: Talks on Aspects of Science, 1951

Lectures on Physical Optics, 1959