C. V. Rāman (1888–1970,) fully Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Rāman, was an Indian physicist and Nobel Prize winner. His work was influential in the growth of science in India. He contributed to the establishment of many research institutions in India.
Born in Tiruchirappalli, Madras Presidency, British India, Rāman was educated at Presidency College, University of Madras. He published his first research paper on the diffraction of light in 1906 while still a graduate student, completing an M.A. degree at age 19. Rāman then worked as an accountant in the Indian Finance Service of the British-Indian government before becoming a physics professor at Rajabazar Science College, University of Calcutta 1917–33. There he started independent research and made his significant contributions in acoustics and optics.
On 28-February-1928, Rāman and his student K. S. Krishnan demonstrated that the interaction of vibrating molecules with photons passing through altered the spectrum of the scattered light. This ‘Rāman effect,’ one of the most significant proofs of the quantum theory of light, became an essential spectroscopic technique. Rāman won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work, making him the first Indian and the first Asian to receive the Nobel Prize in any science branch. In commemoration of the discovery, India celebrates 28-February as National Science Day.
Rāman also researched the physiology of vision. He was the head of the department of physics and first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science 1933–48, a founder of the Indian Academy of Sciences 1934, and the founding director of the Rāman Institute in Mysore 1947. Rāman also helped institute the Indian Journal of Physics and the Indian Academy of Sciences.
Rāman received the first Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award, along with statesman C. Rajagopalachari and philosopher Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. A famous detractor of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Rāman later destroyed his Bharat Ratna medallion in protest against Nehru’s scientific research policies.
Rāman was the paternal uncle of the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. Rāman described his views on modern science in The New Physics (1951.)
Together with his mainstream work, Rāman contributed to understanding the acoustics of the tānpura, veeṇa, violin, mridangam, and other Indian musical instruments. His first research paper (1909) was on the acoustic properties of the single-stringed gopiyantra, a type of ekṭarā.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by C. V. Raman
The true wealth of a nation consists not in the stored- up gold but in the intellectual and physical strength of its people.
—C. V. Raman
The most important, the most fundamental and the deepest investigations are those that affect human life and activities most profoundly. Only those scientists who have laboured, not with the aim of producing this or that, but with the sole desire to advance knowledge ultimately prove to be the greatest benefactors of humanity.
—C. V. Raman
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