Celebrating CV Raman Who Explained Why The Sea is Blue

 

                                                           Source- indiatvnews.com

CV Raman was an Indian physicist who made India proud with his brilliant ideas and ground-breaking innovations. He was awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering why the color of the sea was blue and was the first person of Asian descent to win the prestigious medal. 

The Nobel Prize was awarded for his work on the scattering of light and the discovery of the effect named after him — the Raman effect.

Early Life And Education 

Born in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu to Tamil Brahmin parents- Chandrasekhara Ramanathan Iyer and Parvathi Ammal on November 7, 1888, Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman was one of the foremost physicists India ever produced. His path-breaking studies led to a revolution in the world of Physics and solved the mystery that explained why the sea appears blue. 

His father was a high school teacher and his family moved to Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh when his father started a job in the faculty of physics at Mr A.V. Narasimha Rao College. He completed his schooling in Visakhapatnam and even earned a scholarship under the state board examination for being an exceptionally meritorious student.  

Upon completion of his schooling, he studied at the Presidency College in Madras, which is present-day Chennai. He did extremely well in college and earned gold medals in his core subjects of physics and English. He published his first scientific paper at the mere age of only 18 when most are still in their first year of college, which got published in the British journal called ‘Philosophical Magazine’ in 1906 under the topic "Unsymmetrical diffraction-bands due to a rectangular aperture”. He further pursued his masters from the college itself. 

Scientific Career Begins

During his job as Assistant Accountant General after qualifying for the Indian Finance service in Calcutta, he became closely associated with the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, the first Research Institute of India. He conducted his research at IACS during odd and unusual hours. 

In 1917, CV Raman was given the opportunity to a full professorship at the University of Calcutta. He was elected as a member of the Royal Society in 1924 and also knighted by the British six years later. He was the first director of the Indian Institute of Science in 1933 and went on to found a research institute in 1948 which is called Raman Research Institute on a plot of land in Bengaluru gifted by the Government of Mysore. The institute was funded personally by him to encourage the research paradigm.

His Scientific Contributions 

On 28th February 1928, Raman led an experiment at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) in Kolkata with collaborators including K.S Krishnan, on the scattering of light when he discovered the famous Raman Effect.

It was initially clear that this discovery was of immense value. It went on to gain further proof of the quantum nature of light. Raman Spectroscopy was based on this phenomenon and Ernest Rutherford, a physicist from New Zealand referred to it in his presidential address to the Royal Society in London in 1929.

Raman also performed research on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory of transverse vibration of the bowed strings, which is based on the superposition of velocities. He was also the first researcher to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of Indian drums. 

Raman and his student Nagendra Nath came up with the correct theoretical explanation for the Acousto-optic effect ( Light Scattering by sound waves) in a series of articles resulting in the celebrated Raman-Nath Theory. Modulators and Switching systems based on this effect have enabled optical communication components based on the laser system.

Raman and his student Suri Bhagavantam discovered that the photons of light carry angular momentum in quantum terms, and photons possess an element called spin. Light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation pass their angular momentum onto atoms that absorb them.

Conclusion 

As the world celebrates the 134th birth anniversary of the eminent scientist, CV Raman who was a Nobel laureate and Bharat Ratna and is known for his ground-breaking discovery of the Raman Effect, he continues to be remembered for his outstanding scientific accomplishments and will continue to inspire scientists and students from across the world. 

Written by Chitra Gangwani