Sir C. V. Raman
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was born at Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu
on 7 November 1888. His father
was a lecturer in mathematics and physics so from
the very
beginning he was immersed in
an academic
atmosphere. Raman’s academic
brilliance was established at a very young age.
He finished
his secondary
school education at the tender
age of
thirteen and entered the Mrs. A.V.N. College at Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Two years later he moved to the prestigious Presidency College in Chennai.
When he was
fifteen, he topped his class
to receive
his B.A.
degree with honours in Physics
and English.
Raman continued his studies at
the Presidency
College and when he was
barely eighteen, graduated at the
top of
his class and received his M.A. degree with honours.
Raman joined the Indian Audit and Accounts Service and was appointed
the Assistant Accountant General in the Finance Department in Kolkata. In
Kolkata, he sustained
his interest in science by working in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, in his spare time studying
the physics of stringed instruments
and Indian drums.
In 1917, Raman
gave up
his government
job to
become the Sir Taraknath
Palit Professor of Physics at
the Science
College of University of Calcutta (1917-33). He made enormous
contributions to research in the
areas of vibration, sound, musical instruments,
ultrasonics, dif
fraction, photoelectricity, colloidal
particles, X-ray diffraction, magnetron,
dielectrics, etc. In particular, his work on the scattering
of light during this period brought
him world-wide recognition.
In 1924 he
was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society
of London
and a year later was honoured
with the
prestigious Hughes medal from the
Royal Society. Four years
later,
at the
joint meeting of the South
Indian Science Association and the Science Club of Central College, Bangalore, he announced
his discovery of what is now known as the Raman Effect.
He was knighted
in 1929,
and in
1930, became the first Asian scientist
to be awarded the Nobel Prize
for Physics
for his
discoveries relating to the scattering of light (the Raman
Effect).
In 1934,
he became
the Director
of the
newly established Indian Institute
of Science at Bangalore, where he remained
till his retirement. After retirement, he established the Raman Research Institute
at Bangalore, where he served as the Director. The Government of India conferred
upon him its highest award,the Bharat Ratna in 1954.
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