National Science Day ~ Scattering of lights !!!

 

Often we spend time discussing worthless things – people are so worried about the scenario of Pak making it to Semis !!   Today 28^th Feb is a  great day and we should be hailing a genius from this motherland .. .. did WE ??.. . in a Nation where even Science projects have been named after Nehru / Indira / Rajiv and not after great great Scientists – do you know which place has Pincode 560093 ???

 

 

A major question in physics is the maximum size of a system that can demonstrate quantum mechanical effects. This year’s (2025)  Nobel Prize laureates conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand.

Quantum mechanics allows a particle to move straight through a barrier, using a process called tunnelling. As soon as large numbers of particles are involved, quantum mechanical effects usually become insignificant. The laureates’ experiments demonstrated that quantum mechanical properties can be made concrete on a macroscopic scale. 

The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their groundbreaking discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in electric circuits. Their experiments proved that quantum behavior can be observed in electrical systems large enough to be seen and held. 

              The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded 119 times to 230   laureates between 1901 and 2025. John Bardeen is the only laureate who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics twice, in 1956 and 1972.   Does that strike a chord?   

Rhishard Llewellyn Jones (1865 – 1932) was a Welsh professor of physics who worked at the Presidency College Madras and also served as a director of the Madras Observatory. The man of this post was his student !  Jones  worked at Dulwich College and joined as a professor of physics at the Presidency College, Madras in 1889. He received an MA in 1893. At Madras he also served as Government Meteorologist from 1899.  

In 1902, the man  joined Presidency College in Madras  where his father had been transferred to teach mathematics and physics.  In 1904, he obtained a B.A. degree from the University of Madras, where he stood first and won the gold medals in physics and English.  At age 18, while still a graduate student, he published his first scientific paper on "Unsymmetrical diffraction bands due to a rectangular aperture" in the British journal Philosophical Magazine in 1906.  He earned an M.A. degree from the same university with highest distinction in 1907.  Aware of his capacity, his physics teacher Rhishard Llewellyn Jones insisted he continue research in England.  Sadly, the man was of  poor health and was considered as a "weakling." And was considered not healthy enough  to withstand the harsh weathers of England.  

His was an illustrious family.  His father was a Maths & Physics teacher.  His elder brother joined the Indian Finance Service (now Indian Audit and Accounts Service),  the most prestigious government service in India. In no condition to study abroad, our hero  followed suit and qualified for the Indian Finance Service achieving first position in the entrance examination in   1907.  He was posted in Calcutta   as Assistant Accountant General where he developed acquaintance with  Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), the first research institute founded in India in 1876.   In 1909, he  was transferred to Rangoon, British Burma   to take up the position of currency officer. After only a few months, he had to return to Madras as his father died from an illness.  He came back and   was promoted to Accountant General in 1911 and again posted to Calcutta.  Not any story of a successful bureaucrat !  - but that of a Great Scientist  - Sir C.V. Raman ! 

C. V. Raman was born in Tiruchirapalli,   to Tamil Brahmin parents, Chandrasekhara Ramanathan Iyer and Parvathi Ammal.  He was the second of eight siblings.  Raman discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, the deflected light changes its wave-length and frequency. This phenomenon, a hitherto unknown type of scattering of light, which they called "modified scattering" was subsequently termed the Raman effect or Raman scattering. Raman received the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery and was the first Asian to receive a Nobel Prize in any branch of science.  

CV Raman  topped the bachelor's degree examination of the University of Madras with honours in physics from Presidency College at age 16. His first research paper, on diffraction of light, was published in 1906. In 1917, he was appointed the first Palit Professor of Physics by Ashutosh Mukherjee at the Rajabazar Science College under the University of Calcutta. On his first trip to Europe, seeing the Mediterranean Sea motivated him to identify the prevailing explanation for the blue colour of the sea at the time, namely the reflected Rayleigh-scattered light from the sky, as being incorrect. He founded the Indian Journal of Physics in 1926. He moved to Bangalore in 1933 to become the first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science. He founded the Indian Academy of Sciences the same year. He established the Raman Research Institute in 1948 where he worked to his last days.

The Raman effect was discovered on 28 February 1928. The day is celebrated annually by the Government of India as the National Science Day. In 1954, the Government of India honoured him with the first Bharat Ratna, its highest civilian award. He later smashed the medallion in protest against Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's policies on scientific research.  

Here is something extracted from Nobel Prize web :  Prize motivation: “for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him”  

When light meets particles that are smaller than the light’s wavelength, the light spreads in different directions. This occurs, for example, when light packets—photons—encounter molecules in a gas. In 1928 Venkata Raman discovered that a small portion of the scattered light acquires other wavelengths than that of the original light. This is because some of the incoming photons’ energy can be transferred to a molecule, giving it a higher level of energy. Among other things, the phenomenon is used to analyze different types of material.  

Sir CV Raman was a great personality – awards at least the ones pertaining to Physics must be named after people like him but in our Nation, we have -   Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR); Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai; Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR);  Indira Gandhi Science Complex / Planetarium (Taramandal), Bihar; Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram  .. .. and more !!!!   

.. .. and did you remember him today .. .. if not, though late, let us celebrate and remember that great Scientist, Nobel Laureate  who brought glory to mother India.  The Pincode mentioned  at the start 560093 is CV Raman Nagar in Bengaluru named after the great Scientist. It is a residential area near tech hubs of Indira Nagar and Kaggadasapura.    

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
28^th Feb 2026 
 
Biblio :  https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/1930/raman/facts/
Science day poster : X post of @madhav_ghodekar
Sir CV Raman teaching : X post of @Sudarshn_chakra