C. V.

Raman

1. INTRODUCTION
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, FRS (7 November 1888 – 21
November 1970) was an  Indian physicist whose ground breaking work
in the field of light scattering earned him the 1930  Nobel Prize for
Physics. He discovered that, when light traverses a transparent
material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This
phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the result of
Submitted By – Akanksha Chugwani Submitted To – Mr. Deepak Agrawal

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the Raman effect. In 1954, he was honoured with the highest civilian
award in India, the Bharat Ratna.
2. EARLY YEARS
Venkata Raman was born in Thiruvanaikaval, Trichinopoly, present-day
Tiruchirapalli, Madras Presidency, in British India to Parvati Amma he was self
educated in the field of science.
Raman's maternal grandfather, Saptarshi Sastri, was a Sanskrit scholar, who
was learned in navya nyaya (modern logic). Raman's father initially taught in a
local school in Thiruvanaikaval and later became a lecturer of mathematics and
physics in Mrs. A.V. Narasimha Rao College, Vishakapatnam (then
Vizagapatnam) in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, and later joinedPresidency
College in Madras.
At an early age, Raman moved to the city of Visakhapatnam, and studied in St.
Aloysius Anglo-Indian High School. Raman passed his matriculation
examination at the age of 11 and he passed his F.A. examination (equivalent to
today's Intermediate exam) with a scholarship at the age of 13.
In 1902, Raman joined Presidency College in Madras where his father had
become a lecturer in mathematics and physics. [7]In 1904 he passed his B.A.
(Bachelor of Arts) examination - he stood first and won the gold medal in
physics. In 1907 he gained his M.A. (Master of Arts) degree with the highest
distinctions.

3. CAREER
In 1917, Raman resigned from his government service after he was appointed the
first Palit Professor of Physics at theUniversity of Calcutta. At the same time, he
continued doing research at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of
Science(IACS), Calcutta, where he became the Honorary Secretary. Raman used
to refer to this period as the golden era of his career. Many students gathered
around him at the IACS and the University of Calcutta.

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Energy level diagram showing the states involved in Raman signal

On 28 February 1928, Raman led experiments at the IACS with

collaborators, including K. S. Krishnan, on the scattering of light,
when he discovered what now is called the Raman effect. A detailed
account of this period is reported in the biography by G. Venkatraman.
It was instantly clear that this discovery was of huge value. It gave
further proof of the quantum nature of light. Raman had a complicated
professional relationship with K. S. Krishnan, who surprisingly did not
share the award, but is mentioned prominently even in the Nobel
lecture.
Raman spectroscopy came to be based on this phenomenon,
andErnest Rutherford referred to it in his presidential address to
the Royal Society in 1929. Raman was president of the 16th session of
the Indian Science Congress in 1929. He was conferred a knighthood,
and medals and honorary doctorates by various universities. Raman
was confident of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics as well, but was
disappointed when the Nobel Prize went to Owen Richardson in 1928
and to Louis de Broglie in 1929. He was so confident of winning the
prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even though the awards
were to be announced in November, and would scan each day's
newspaper for announcement of the prize, tossing it away if it did not
carry the news. He did eventually win the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics
"for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the
Raman effect". He was the first Asian and first non-white to receive

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any Nobel Prize in the sciences. Before him Rabindranath Tagore (also
Indian) had received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.
Raman and Suri Bhagavantam discovered the quantum photon spin in
1932, which further confirmed the quantum nature of light.
Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He
worked out the theory of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the
basis of superposition velocities. He was also the first to investigate
the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as
the tabla and the mridangam.

4. PERSONAL LIFE
He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal (1892–1980).
They had two sons, Chandrasekhar andRadhakrishnan.
On his religious views, he was an agnostic.
Raman retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1948 and
established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, Karnataka, a
year later. He served as its director and remained active there until his
death in 1970, in Bangalore, at the age of 82.
Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who
later won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1983) for his discovery of
the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on the
nuclear reactions necessary for stellar evolution.
5. ACHEIVEMENTS
During a voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman noticed the blue colour of
glaciers and the Mediterranean sea. He was motivated to discover the
reason for the blue colour. Raman carried out experiments regarding
the scattering of light by water and transparent blocks of ice which
explained the phenomenon.
There is an event that served as the inspiration of the Raman effect.
On a December evening in 1927, Raman's student K. S. Krishnan (who
later became the Director of the National Physical Laboratory) gave
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him the news that Professor Compton had won the Nobel Prize for his
studies of the scattering of X-rays. This led Raman to theorize that if
the Compton effect is applicable for X-rays, then it may be for light
also, and to devise some experiments.
Raman employed monochromatic light from a mercury arc lamp which
penetrated transparent material and was allowed to fall on
a spectrograph to record its spectrum. He detected lines in the
spectrum which he later called Raman lines. He presented his theory
at a meeting of scientists in Bangalore on 16 March 1928, and won the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

6. HONOURS AND AWARDS

Bust of Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman which is placed in the garden

of Birla Industrial & Technological Museum.

 He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society early in his career

(1924) andknighted in 1929.
 In 1930 he won the Nobel Prize in Physics.
 In 1941 he was awarded the Franklin Medal.

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India celebrates National Science Day on 28 February of every year to
commemorate the discovery of the Raman effect in 1928.
7. DEATH
At the end of October he collapsed in his laboratory, the valves of his
heart having given way. He was moved to hospital and the doctors
gave him four hours to live. He survived and after a few days refused
to stay in the hospital as he preferred to die in the gardens of his
Institute surrounded by his flowers. Raman died from natural causes
early next morning on 21 November 1970.

Submitted By – Akanksha Chugwani Submitted To – Mr. Deepak Agrawal

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