Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman, popularly known as C.V.Raman was born in Thiruchinapalli, in Tamil Nadu on November 1888. He was the second child of Chandrasekhar Iyer and Parvathi Ammal. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics so that from the first he was immersed in an academic atmosphere. At a very early age, Raman moved to the city of Vishakapatnam, which is in the state of Andhra Pradesh. On May 6, 1907, he married Lokasundari Ammal.

Raman grew up in an atmosphere of music, Sanskrit literature and science. At the age of eleven he finished his secondary school education and two years later moved to the prestigious Presidency College in Madras. In 1904, when he was fifteen, he received B.A with Honors in Physics and English. He gained his M.A degree in 1907 obtaining the highest distinctions. After completing his studies, Raman became an accountant in the finance department of the Indian government. He was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1924.

At the time of Raman’s graduation, there were few opportunities for scientists in India. This forced him to accept a position with the Indian Civil Services as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. Love of science, enthusiasm for work and the curiosity to learn the new things were natural to Raman. He took immense interest in the study of sound. When he was eighteen years of age one of his research papers was published in the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ of England. Later another paper was published in the scientific journal ‘Nature’.

He became Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta in 1917. He worked there till 1948. And then he became the Director of the Raman Institute of Research at Bangalore which was established and endowed by him.

The Raman Effect: We are delighted by the rainbow. We see it in shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. The white ray of the sun includes all these colors. When a beam of sunlight is passed through a glass prism a patch of these color brands are seen. This is called spectrum. Spectral lines in it are characteristic of the light passing through the prism. A beam of light that causes a single spectral line is said to be monochromatic. When a beam of monochromatic light passes through a transparent substance the beam is scattered.

Raman spent a long time in the study of scattered light. On February 28, 1928 he observed two low intensity spectral line corresponding to the incident mono-chromatic light. Years of his labor had borne fruit. Raman’s experiments discovered a phenomenon which was lying hidden in nature. The 16th of March 1928 is a memorable day in the history of science. On that day, Raman announced the new phenomenon discovered by him to the world. It attracted the attention of research workers allover the world and it became famous as the “Raman Effect”.

The Raman Effect confirmed that the light was made up of particles known as ‘photons’. It helped in the study of the molecular and crystal structures of different substances. During the first twelve years after its discovery, about 1800 research papers were published on various aspects of it and about 2500 chemical compounds were studied.

Raman received many honors from all over the world for his achievement. In 1928 the Science Society of Rome awarded the Matteucci Medal. The British made him a knight of the British Empire in 1929 and from then on he came to be known as Professor Sir C.V.Raman. The following year he was honored with the prestigious Hughes medal from the Royal society. Honorary Doctorate degrees were awarded by the universities of Freiburg (Germany), Glasgow (England), Paris (France), Bombay, Benaras, Patna, Mysore, and several others. In 1930, the Swedish Academy of Sciences chose Raman to receive the Noble prize for Physics. No Indian and no Asian have received this award upto that time.

He came to Bangalore as the Director of the Tata Institute in 1933. The Tata Institute soon became famous for the study of crystals. The diffraction of light by ultrasonic waves in a liquid was elegantly explained by Raman and Nagendranath. This became known as the ‘Raman-Nath Theory’.

In order to encourage scientific research in India, Raman established the Academy of Sciences in 1934. From that year the science journal ‘The Proceedings of the Academy’ is being published every month. The Executive Committee of the Academy named the centre ‘Raman Research Institute’. In 1948, he became the Director of that Institute.

Raman collected rocks and precious stones. He loved flowers for their colors. Raman used to announce his new scientific discoveries at the annual sessions of the Academy. At the Madras session in 1969, he discussed the influence of the earth’s rotation on its gaseous envelop. Next year he put forward his theory of the physiology of vision.

The greatest honor the Government of India confers on an Indian is the award of ‘Bharat Ratna’. Raman became a ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1954.

Raman did not speak much about God and religion. Science was his God and work, his religion. He believed that the new discoveries confirm the existence of God. A few days before his 83 birthday Raman suffered a mild heart attack. He passed away on the 21st of November 1970. By his achievements and self-respect he earned a honored place for India in the world of science. He laid the foundations of a scientific tradition of India by building up institutes for research, by publishing science journals, and by encouraging young scientists. Truly he was the ‘Grand Old Man of Indian Science’. He trained hundreds of students who found important posts in Universities and government in India and also in Myanmar (Burma).

Compiled By: Kalapala Hima Deepthi