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.
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. \
Posts held
1. Palit Professor of Physics, Calcutta University
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
10. National Professor of India
11. Member, American Optical Society
Awards won
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
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’.