Dr. C.V. Raman – The Man Behind National Science Day

In 1930, a common man made the Indian scientific society proud by bagging the first Nobel prize for physics. The man who decoded the color of sky and sea, and changed the people’s perspective on spectroscopy, he is none other than Dr. C.V. Raman.

Young days:

In a small city Tiruchirppalli, Tamil Nadu on, 7 November 1888, Parvathi Ammal gave birth to a son who revolutionized the field of acoustics and optics. As a son of a lecturer in mathematics and physics, he manifested a brilliant mind in his childhood.

Education:

Raman’s passion towards studies, led him to accomplish his schooling at a very young age of 11.  He moved to Chennai in 1903, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Physics at Presidency college, Madras University.  In 1906, he published his first research paper on diffraction of light as a graduate student. Achieving a gold medal, he then completed his masters in the same university.

A bolt from the blue:

In 1907, due to his father’s insistence he joined the Indian Finance Department as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. But his soul was in search of scientific research, which made him to be a night owl, conducting research in Indian Association for Cultivation of Sciences. His dedication for Physics brought him the opportunity to work as the first Palit professor of Physics in University Of Calcutta.

His fame in the field of optics and acoustics reached the world which made J.J. Thomson and Lord Rutherford to invite him to England. The return voyage made a turning point in Raman’s life. The deep blue color of the Mediterranean, made him to give a second thought on Lord Rayleigh’s explanation that the colour of sea is just a mere reflection of the color of sky.

Curiosity turned into a discovery:

Raman’s tedious efforts on observing the behaviour of  monochromatic light which penetrated transparent materials and fell on a spectrograph gave the  well-known “Raman Effect”. This brilliant and surprising discovery amazed the scientific community. James Hibben, honoured him quoting, “The Raman Effect became the adopted child of chemistry”.

Awards and achievements:

The physics Nobel prize was awarded to Dr. C.V. Raman in 1930 for his tremendous work and discovery of “Raman Effect”. The Indian government honoured the first Indian Nobel prize in science awardee with it’s highest civilian award, ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1954. To mark his contribution for the country, The National Council for Science and Technology Communication, suggested the Indian government to designate February 28, as National Science Day. From then every year, the national science day is celebrated all over the country to spread the message about the importance of science used in the daily lives of people. Many events such as debates, seminars, quizzes are conducted by the schools, colleges, universities and other academic institutions on this day.

The seeker of truth, Dr. C.V. Raman, left the material world on November 21, 1970 .