Sir C V RAMAN

His Life and Work

This report gives a brief outline of the life and work of Sir C V
Raman, the first Asian and the only Indian citizen to be venerated
with the prestigious Nobel prize in Physics

Assignment-1 on Research Methodology


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Sir C V RAMAN
His Life and Work
Sir C V Raman (Chandrasekhar Venkatta Raman) was the first Asian and
the only Indian citizen to receive the prestigious Nobel Prize in physics. He
received the prize in 1930 "for his work on the scattering of light and for
the discovery of the effect named after him".
Schooling and early life
He was born as the second among the eight children of Shri Chandrasekhar
Iyer and Parvathi Amma on 7
th
November 1888. His father was a lecturer
in Physics and Mathematics at Mrs A.V.Narasimha Rao College,
Visakhapattinam. He had provided a highly academic environment to his
kids at home. This helped Raman to nurture his interests in science from
very young age itself. He was a very bright student during his school days.
Raman completed his schooling at a young age of 11, passing the
matriculation examination with first rank.
He completed his intermediate examination from AVN College with flying
colors. He joined Madras Presidency College to pursue his BA degree
program. Having completed his graduate program with first rank and gold
medal from the University, he continued his post graduate program also in
the same college. It is worth noting that he was still a teenager when he
obtained his masters degree.
Ramans career
Raman was very keen on continuing his experiments in there physics, but
opportunities for the same was very less in India at that time. Even though
Europe offered many opportunities, his travelling overseas was ruled out
due to his physical weakness at that time. His next choice was the highly
prestigious ICS, which also he couldnt join as the exams for the same was
conducted in Europe only. So he joined Financial Civil Service (FCS).
Needless to mention he was the first rank holder in that exam too. He was
posted at Calcutta as Assistant Accountant General.
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By that time he had married Lokasundari Ammal, whom he met at his
friends house. Lokasundari Ammal, later came to be known as Lady
Raman, was very talented in playing the classical musical instrument
Veenai .This was one reason which attracted Raman towards her. Later
throughout their life she had extended full support to Raman in his
professional and personal life.
Even though he worked in a department not connected with his primary
interest, Physics, Raman found ways to satisfy his quest in fundamental
physics. During his free time, he conducted experiments at Indian
Association for Cultivation of Science (IACS). His major field of interest was
Optics and Acoustics. During his official tenure at Rangoon and Nagpur, he
set up laboratories at his house to pursue his experiments.
After serving around 10 years at the Finance Department, he was offered
the Sri Tharaknath Palit Professorship of physics at Calcutta University.
Despite the lower pay, he readily joined the university due his love for
physics. During his tenure as professor at the University, Raman pursued
his research in optics and acoustics at IACS, in effect converting IACS to a
research arm of the Calcutta University. He had to quit the University
because of some difference of opinion with Meghnath Saha. Raman was
also voted out of the honorary secretary ship of the IACS. It was a bitter
moment but brought about by his rather large ego.
It was in 1921 during one of his sea voyages to Europe as a representative
of the Calcutta University, that Raman wondered why the Mediterranean
Sea was having a dark blue shade. Further studies into this phenomenon
was awarded with the Nobel Prize for Raman.
In 1934 Raman was appointed as the first Indian born Director of Indian
Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Before him all the directors of the
Institute were Europeans. He served IISc both as director (1934 to 1937)
and also as the head of the physics department (1937 to 1948).
During his tenure at IISc, Raman initiated many changes in the institute
like reorganization of many departments and setting up a new physics
department. He was also instrumental in establishing a central workshop
for fabricating precision instruments
During 1947, immediately after independence he was appointed as the first
National Professor of India (Emeritus Professor).
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Even before his retirement from IISc, he was in the process of setting up a
research institute in his name- the Raman Research Institute (RRI). He
invested all his savings and raised sufficient funds to set up the laboratory
at Bangalore. The RRI was setup on the 10 acre land donated by the
Mysore king for the Indian Academy of sciences and its related activities.
Raman donated most of his personal properties to the academy for the
benefit of the institute. He along with some of his students founded a few
chemical industries to finance the institute.
He continued his research at the institute till his death on November 21
1970. He didnt want to be hospitalized during the last days of his life. He
wanted to die in the gardens of his institute surrounded by its flowers. He
was cremated inside the Raman Research Institute campus, the spot
marked by a beautiful tree.
Ramans research
As mentioned Raman was a keen researcher even during his school days.
During his student days itself, he had published a paper titled
Unsymmetrical diffraction band due to rectangular aperture in the
Philosophical Magazine (London) in 1906. Later he followed it up with a
note on a new experimental technique to measure surface tension.
In addition to his Nobel Prize winning work on the scattering of light,
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. This theory explains the bowed string vibration in
a much better way than Helmholtz's theory. He was also the first to
investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as
the tabla and the mridangam.
His other areas of interest were optics of colloids, magnetic and electric
anisotropy and physiology of human eye.
Raman Effect
In order to explain the dark blue shade of the sea, Raman conducted
extensive research on the light scattering through water, transparent ice
blocks and other media. He used mercury arc lamps and spectrographs. He
discovered that when light traverses a transparent medium, some of the
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deflected light changes its frequency. This phenomenon helped in
observing vibrational, rotational and other low frequency oscillation modes
in a crystals and other systems. This helped in proving the theory of
relativity and also started a new method of analysis known as Raman
Spectroscopy.
It is noteworthy that Raman received the Nobel Prize just after two years
of his discovery of the Raman Effect. The importance of this discovery can
be gauged from the number of related papers published during this short
span of time (not less than 225 papers). The immediate application of the
discovery is in the fields of experimental and theoretical physics. This effect
is analogous to the Compton Effect seen in X-rays.
Awards and Honors
Raman was decorated with a number of awards and honors. He was also
conferred with a number of honorary doctorates and memberships of
scientific societies.
At a very young age he was elected Fellow of Royal Society, London. He
was knighted by the Queen in 1929. He won the prestigious Nobel Prize for
Physics in 1930. He was also awarded the Franklin medal by the Franklin
Institute. The then USSR decorated him with the Lenin Peace Prize,
Russian equivalent of Noble Peace Prize in 1957.
Back home, sir Raman was decorated with the highest civilian award,
Bharat Ratna by the Indian Government in 1954. Moreover February 28 of
every year is celebrated all over India as national science day to
commemorate his discovery of the Raman Effect in 1928.
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was above all a staunch patriot. He
had immense faith in Indias potential for progress. He was in the forefront
for the popularization of science. It was his opinion that scientific research
needed independent thinking and hard work and not equipments. His
scientific spirit would remain as a beacon for all Indians.
List of References
http://www.iloveindia.com/indian-heroes/cv-raman.html
http://www.karnataka.com/personalities/cv-raman/
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raman_spectroscopy
http://www.gyanpedia.in/tabid/275/itemid/174/CV-Raman.aspx
http://www.iisc.ernet.in/currsci/nov10/articles33.htm
http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm
http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/raman.htm
http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm
http://biography-of.com/c-v-raman
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/C._V._Raman
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