TOP SCIENTISTS OF MODERN INDIA

The development of scientific thought in modern India can be attributed to the scientists of this period. Towards the second half of the nineteenth century, Sir C.V. Raman brought about an unprecedented change in Indian scientific thought, Dr. Homi J. Bhabha, known as the father of our Nuclear Physics, predicted the future of Indian science. Dr. J.C. Bose, in the field of plant physiology, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, in the field of atomic energy and industrialization and Dr. Abdul Kalam, in the field of defence technology, brought about revolutionary changes to reawaken the glory of Modern India

SRINIVAS RAMANUJAN (1887-1920)

• Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan (FRS) better known as Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan, one of India’s greatest mathematical genius.
• In 1913 he began a correspondence with the British mathematician Godfrey H. Hardy which led to a special scholarship from the University of Madras and a grant from Trinity College, Cambridge.
• In 1918 he was elected to the Royal Society of London.
• Ramanujan was one of the youngest members of Britain's Royal Society and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University.
• Contributions to Mathematics:
• Formulas and Equations: Ramanujan compiled around 3,900 results consisting of equations and identities. One of his most treasured findings was his infinite series for Pi. He gave several formulas to calculate the digits of Pi in many unconventional ways.
• Game Theory: He discovered a long list of new ideas to solve many challenging mathematical problems, which gave a significant impetus to the development of game theory. His contribution to game theory is purely based on intuition and natural talent and remains unrivalled to this day.
• Ramanujan’s Book: One of Ramanujan’s notebooks was discovered by George Andrews in 1976 in the library at Trinity College. Later the contents of this notebook were published as a book.
• Ramanujan number:  1729 is known as the Ramanujan number. It is the smallest number which can be expressed as the sum of two different cubes in two different ways.
• Other Contributions: Ramanujan’s other notable contributions include hypergeometric series, the Riemann series, the elliptic integrals, mock theta function, the theory of divergent series, and the functional equations of the zeta function.

CHANDRASEKHARA V. RAMAN (1888-1970)

• Raman conducted his Nobel-prize winning research at IACS, Calcutta.
• While he was educated entirely in India, Raman travelled to London for the first time in 1921, where his reputation in the study of optics and acoustics was known to physicists such as JJ Thomson and Lord Rutherford.
• The Raman Effect won scientist Sir CV Raman the Nobel Prize for physics in 1930.
• It was also designated as an International Historic Chemical Landmark jointly by the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS).
• His speciality was the study of vibrations and sounds of stringed instruments such as the Indian veena and tambura, and Indian percussion instruments such as the tabla and mridangam.
• In 1928, Raman discovered that when a stream of light passes through a liquid, a fraction of the light scattered by the liquid is of a different colour.
• While Raman was returning from London in a 15-day voyage, he started thinking about the colour of the deep blue Mediterranean.
• He wasn’t convinced by the explanation that the colour of the sea was blue due to the reflection of the sky.
• As the ship docked in Bombay, he sent a letter to the editor of the journal Nature, in which he penned down his thoughts on this.
• Subsequently, Raman was able to show that the blue colour of the water was due to the scattering of the sunlight by water molecules.
• By this time he was obsessed with the phenomenon of light scattering.

JAGDISH CHANDRA BOSE (1858-1937)

• C. Bose another great scientist of modem India brought glory and respect for the country.
• In 1885 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physics at the Presidency College but refused to take salary because it was nearly half of that of an Englishman.
• Later on, he decided to become a scientist to recover the fame that India enjoyed all over the world in ancient times.
• He made an apparatus to study the properties of electric waves.
• For his paper on “The Electromagnetic Radiation and Polarization of Electric Ray”, he was made a Knight in 1917 and Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1920.
• He was the first Indian scientist in Physics to receive this honour.
• Bose is famous all over the world as the inventor of Crescograph that can record even the millionth part of a millimeter of plant growth and movement.
• Bose proved through graphs taken by the Crescograph that plants have a circulatory system too.
• Bose also made many other instruments famous all over the world as Bose instruments, to prove that even metals react to outward stimuli.
• Bose’s instruments have shown, how even steel and metals used in scissors and machinery get tired and regain efficiency after a period of rest.
• Besides Crescograph and other Bose instruments, his wireless inventions too antedated those of Marconi.
• He was the first to invent a wireless coherer (radio signal detector) and an instrument for indicating the refraction of electric waves.

 HOMI JEHANGIR BHABHA (1909-1966)

• Homi Jehangir Bhabha was a great scientist.
• He led India into atomic age. He is called the father of Indian Nuclear Science.
• Till 1939, he carried outstanding original research relating to cosmic radiation.
• He took a very bold decision and wrote a letter to Sir Dorab Ji Tata suggesting that an institution should be established which would lay the foundation of India as a world nuclear power.
• As a result, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) was started in 1945, at Dr. Bhabha’s ancestral home
• India’s first atomic research centre now called Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) was established at Trombay.
• India’s First atomic reactor, Apsara was also established under his expert guidance.
• Bhabha became the first chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission set up in 1948.
• He served as the chairman of international conference on peaceful uses of atomic energy, supported by the United Nations.

VIKRAM AMBALAL SARABHAI (1919-1970)

• He was the main personality behind the launching of India’s first satellite Aryabhatta.
• He studied cosmic rays under the guidance of Dr. C.V. Raman and received his Ph.D. degree from Cambridge University.
• His studies of cosmic rays have made it clear that cosmic rays are a stream of energy particles coming from the outer space. While reaching the earth, they are influenced on the way by the sun, the earth’s atmosphere and magnetism.
• He was a great industrialist. Today, there are many industries founded by him such as Sarabhai Chemicals, Sarabhai Glass, Sarabhai Geigy Ltd., Sara Bhai Merck Ltd. and many others.
• He also helped in saving crores of rupees for India by starting the mission of manufacturing military hardware and producing antibiotics and penicillin in India which were being imported from abroad.
• He was also the founder of Ahmedabad Textile Industrial Association and Ahmedabad Money Association.
• Vikram Ambalal Sarabhai established many institutes which are of international repute. Most notable among them are Indian Institutes of Management.
• He was the Chairman of the Indian National Commission for Space Research (INCOSPAR) and of the Atomic Energy Commission.
• He directed the setting up of Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS).
• He also made plans to take education to the villages through Satellite communication.

 A.P.J. ABDUL KALAM

• He was awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour in 1997 for his contributions in the field of science and engineering.
• He developed the Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV 3), which put the satellite Rohini into orbit.
• In 1982, he was given the responsibility of Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).
• He developed five projects for defence services - Prithvi, Trishul, Akash,Nag and Agni.
• He integrated science with religion and philosophy.

VISVESVARAYA

• Born in 1860, Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was a notable Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore during 1912 to 1918.
• He was a recipient of the Indian Republic’s highest honour, the Bharat Ratna.
• Sir M V suggested that India try to be at par with industrialized nations as he believed that India can become developed through industries.
• He has the credit of inventing ‘automatic sluice gates’ and ‘block irrigation system’ which are still considered to be marvels in engineering.
• Each year, his birthday 15 September is celebrated as Engineer’s Day in India.
• Since river beds were costly, he came up with an efficient way of filtering water through ‘Collector Wells’ in 1895 which was rarely seen anywhere in the world.

VENKATRAMAN RADHAKRISHNAN

• Venkatraman Radhakrishnan born in1929 was a globally renowned space scientist and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• He was an internationally acclaimed Astrophysicist and also known for his design and fabrication of ultralight aircraft and sailboats.
• His observations and theoretical insights helped the community in unraveling many mysteries surrounding pulsars, interstellar clouds, galaxy structures and various other celestial bodies.

CHANDRASHEKHAR

• Born in 1910 in Lahore, British India, he was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for his mathematical theory of black holes.
• The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him. He was nephew of CV Raman.
• His most celebrated work concerns the radiation of energy from stars, particularly white dwarf stars, which are the dying fragments of stars.

 SATYENDRA NATH BOSE

• Born in 1894 in Calcutta, SN Bose was an Indian physicist specialising in quantum mechanics.
• He is of course most remembered for his role played in the class of particles ‘bosons‘, which were named after him by Paul Dirac to commemorate his work in the field.
• Bose adapted a lecture at the University of Dhaka on the theory of radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe into a short article called “Planck’s Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta” and sent it to Albert Einstein. Einstein agreed with him, translated Bose’s paper “Planck’s Law and Hypothesis of Light Quanta” into German, and had it published in Zeitschrift für Physikunder Bose’s name, in 1924. This formed the basis of the Bose-Einstein Statistics.
• In 1937, Rabindranath Tagore dedicated his only book on science, Visva–Parichay, to Satyendra Nath Bose. 

 MEGHNAD SAHA

• Born in 1893 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Meghnad Saha’s best-known work concerned the thermal ionisation of elements, and it led him to formulate what is known as the Saha Equation.
• This equation is one of the basic tools for interpretation of the spectra of stars in astrophysics.
• By studying the spectra of various stars, one can find their temperature and from that, using Saha’s equation, determine the ionisation state of the various elements making up the star.
• He also invented an instrument to measure the weight and pressure of solar rays.
• He was also the chief architect of river planning in India.
• He prepared the original plan for the Damodar Valley Project.

SALIM ALI

• Born in 1896 in Mumbai, was an ornithologist and a naturalist.
• Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and his bird books helped develop ornithology in the sub-continent.
• This Birdman of India was the key figure behind the Bombay Natural History Society after 1947 and used his personal influence to garner government support for the organisation.

HAR GOBIND KHORANA

• Born in 1922 at Raipur village in West Punjab (now in Pakistan), Khorana was an Indian-American biochemist who shared the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Marshall W. Nirenberg and Robert W. Holley for research that helped to show how the order of nucleotides in nucleic acids, which carry the genetic code of the cell, control the cell’s synthesis of proteins.
• In 1970, Khorana became the first to synthesize an artificial gene in a living cell.
• His work became the foundation for much of the later research in biotechnology and gene therapy.

 BIRBAL SAHNI

• Born in 1891 in West Punjab, Sahni was an Indian paleobotanist who studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent.
• He was also a geologist who took an interest in archaeology.
• His greatest contributions lie in the study of the plants of India in the present as well as the historical context.
• He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) in 1936, the highest British scientific honor, awarded for the first time to an Indian botanist.
• He was a founder of The Paleobotanical Society which established the Institute of Palaeobotany.