Jagdish Chandra Bose
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The
nineteenth century saw many great personalities from India emerge in
all fields be it freedom fighters, philosophers or scientists. One
such great man was Jagdish Chandra Bose who put India on the
scientific world map with his ingenuity and scientific flair. He
conducted bold experiments in Physics, Botany and Physiology.
J.C. Bose was born on November 30, 1858. His father Bhagawan Chandra
Bose was a Deputy Magistrate who had a very keen sense of justice
and a humanitarian. He had a strong sense of Indian culture and
heritage and chose to send his son to a local school instead of one
of the prestigious English medium schools preaching western culture.
Bose
joined St. Xavier's School in Calcutta and then left for England in
1880 for higher studies. Returning to India in 1885, Bose was
appointed Professor of Physics at the Presidency College in
Calcutta. However he continued his research work inspite of a hectic
work schedule and built a small private laboratory for his
experiments. |
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Did you
know? |
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J.C. Bose
shared a close friendship with Rabindranath Tagore. Nobel Laureate
Albert Einstein was a colleague J.C. Bose. |
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Achievements |
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JC Bose
demonstrated the existence and propaganda of wireless waves in 1885. His
work on devices for receiving the polarization of electric waves was
later exploited by Marconi who designed a long distance radio signalling
device. |
Bose's continued research in cohering receivers led to a startling
discovery. He was able to show the similarity in response of the
living and non-living to various types of stress and strains. Based
on this theory Bose presented his conclusions in a report at the
International Congress of Physics in Paris.
Having discovered this similarity to electric response in animal
tissue and inorganic substances Bose now started exploring the
response in plants to external stimuli. He was able to establish
this similarity in plants too. However his theories met with stiff
resistance from physiologists who feared that his new theories would
upset the old ones and persuaded the Royal Society to not publish
his papers on the subject.
Another of Bose's amazing achievements was his invention of the 'crescograph'.
The crescograph was an electrical instrument that could measure the
growth of a plant accurately. |
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Bose also
wrote a number of books and research papers based on his work and
findings in both English and Bengali. Several were translated into other
European languages too.
Bose also wanted his countrymen and youth to cultivate a scientific
temper. This dream of his was realized on November 30, 1917 when the
Bose Research Institute was set up with the inaugural song composed by
Rabindranath Tagore. |
Bose was
honoured both in India and outside for his contributions to science. He
was elected Fellow of the Royal Society on May 13, 1920, becoming the
first Indian to be honoured by the Royal Society in the field of
Science.
Suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, J.C. Bose passed away
on November 23, 1937 at the age of 79. However the great legacy that
Bose left behind remains an inspiration for the present and the
generations to come. |
