India's Contribution to Science & Technology

The Technology & Economic Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to Technological and Economic developments in India. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Post Reply
AryaSen
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 3
Joined: 04 Jul 2004 11:31
Location: USA

India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by AryaSen »

It would be nice to discuss the lives and work of Indians who contributed significantly in the field of science and technology. Bringing up unsung heroes or the less popular figures will also be valuable. This topic can also contain how the important national institutes and facilities came into existence and their history. A gateway to this would be to discuss the birth of the Indian Science Congress and how it developed over the years.

Note to admins : I could not find a niche for this one, feel free to shift it wherever you find fit. If there is no taker for this one, let it die its natural death.
Sohum
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 63
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 11:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Sohum »

"Bose Corporation was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, then professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While doing graduate work at MIT in the 1950s, Dr. Bose decided to purchase a new stereo system. He was disappointed to find that speakers with impressive technical specifications failed to reproduce the realism of a live performance.

This led to extensive research in the fields of speaker design and psychoacoustics—the human perception of sound. Dr. Bose’s findings resulted in significantly new design concepts that help deliver the emotional impact of live music.

Bose Corporation established itself by introducing the 901® Direct/Reflecting® speaker system in 1968. With this introduction, Bose achieved international acclaim by setting a new standard for lifelike sound reproduction.

The list of major technologies emerging from Bose continues to grow. Fourteen years of research led to the development of acoustic waveguide speaker technology, found in our award-winning Wave® radio, Wave® radio/CD and Acoustic Wave® music systems.

The introduction of Acoustimass® speaker technology reshaped conventional thinking about the relationship between speaker size and sound. Speakers small enough to fit in the palm of your hand produced sound quality previously thought impossible from small speakers.

For arenas and other large venue applications, Auditioner® audio demonstrator technology removes the historical guesswork from sound system design. It allows builders, architects and facility managers to hear precisely what a Bose® system will sound like in their building, before any equipment is installed, even if the building only exists as a blueprint.

The proprietary, integrated system design found in Bose Lifestyle® systems has set new standards for complete home audio solutions. They have been engineered to be the best-sounding, easiest-to-use music and home theater systems ever.

Today, you can hear Bose wherever quality sound is important. From the Olympic games to the Sistine Chapel. From NASA space shuttles to the Japan National Theatre. In the home and on the road, from large outdoor arenas to intimate neighborhood stores and restaurants, you can hear the realism of the most respected name in sound—Bose."

About Bose and Dr.Amar G. Bose
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

aah ... a new thread ... a place for me to post about a great Indian ...

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
NASA's premier X-ray observatory was named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (pronounced: su/bra/mon'/yon chandra/say/kar). Known to the world as Chandra (which means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit), he was widely regarded as one of the foremost astrophysicists of the twentieth century.
However, that site fails to outline the psy-ops played on Chandra by the Engligh dude Sir Arthur Eddington .... Read this site for more details ...
Chandra’s ideas were strongly opposed by Arthur Eddington, England’s leading astrophysicist. Chandra worked very hard as a research student and was awarded the doctorate degree in 1933. He was elected a fellow at Trinity College. Chandra, now more relaxed and confident, returned to the problem of white dwarfs. By a more complete calculation, he confirmed his earlier result there is an upper limit to the mass of a white dwarf. He was invited to give a talk on this subject at the Royal Astronomical Society in January 1935. But after his lecture, Eddington stood up and rejected Chandra's results, not by scientific argument but by ridiculing the combination of special relativity theory with quantum statistics.
needless to say, Chandra was right and the Eddington dude was just a crummy racist ... but that, by now, is history ...
chilarai
BRFite
Posts: 580
Joined: 01 Mar 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by chilarai »

Originally posted by Sohum Desai:
"Bose Corporation was founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_G._Bose says
Amar G Bose is an American-born Indian electrical engineer.

hmm so he held Indian citizenship ?
George J

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by George J »

Bose sux. Try Cadence for truly desi speakers.
JE Menon
Forum Moderator
Posts: 7127
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by JE Menon »

Ah, the kings of electrostatic... Expensive though no?
George J

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by George J »

High End Audio is rarely cheap. Cadence is actually hybred-ES and they make their own vacume tube amps too.
Sohum
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 63
Joined: 02 Jul 2003 11:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Sohum »

I didn't know Desis came to America that long ago.
abhishek
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 70
Joined: 07 Jun 2004 11:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by abhishek »

As far as I know, Bose is half desi (he was not born in India for sure)...his mother might be a German....
Sridhar
BRFite
Posts: 838
Joined: 01 Jan 2001 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Sridhar »

Originally posted by Sohum Desai:
I didn't know Desis came to America that long ago.
This is a digression, but the first desi to go to America was a guy called the 'Madras Man' (his actual name is unknown) who sailed to the US in 1780. There are also some whose ancestors first arrived in the US in the early part of the 20th century. And R.K.Narayan, in his book 'My Dateless American Diary' writes about his travels around the US in the early 50s, and mentions various Indians he meets across the US.
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by Sohum Desai:
I didn't know Desis came to America that long ago.
you gotta be kidding ...

Sardarji's from India came to California a 100 years ago ... they settled in Yuba City and ended up owning serious amounts of agricultural land ...

anither matter that these same dudes funded the Khalistan Movement ...

but, in today's relaxed times, they are Desis that out-distance you or me by a 100 years :-)
Neshant
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4852
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Neshant »

they were a bunch who came to canada too. mostly to vancouver i believe.. as agricultural workers. some even fought in the canadian army for the british empire in world war one. anyway i don't want to hijack the thread.

bose also invented the receiver that picked up marconi's transatlantic transmission. though he is never given credit for it.

BOSE INVENTED MARCONI’S WIRELESS

BY MITA MUKHERJEE

Calcutta, Oct. 31, 1997

Nearly 100 years after Guglielmo Marconi’s first transatlantic wireless communication, it has come to light that the detector he had used to pick up the signal was invented by Professor Jagadish Chandra Bose. The discovery -- made by a group of scientists of the US-based Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) — proves what has been a century-old suspicion in the world scientific community: that the honour of being the pioneer in wireless communication should have gone to Bose and not Marconi.

.... find the rest of the article on google
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by Neshant Sajen:


BOSE INVENTED MARCONI’S WIRELESS

Just in case it is not clear, the two Boses are not the same ...
Kumar
BRFite
Posts: 259
Joined: 13 Feb 1999 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Kumar »

The following is a great article on JC Bose's research on radio waves (millimetric). Has some wonderful pictures of instruments made by him.

THE WORK OF JAGADIS CHANDRA BOSE:100 YEARS OF MM-WAVE RESEARCH

A couple of years ago IEEE officially acknowledged Bose over Marconi.
IEEE Virtual museum: Jagadish Chandra Bose
During the years 1894-1900, Bose performed pioneering research on radio waves and created waves as short as 5 mm. Bose’s work actually predates that of Guglielmo Marconi who is most often associated with the development of radio. Unlike Marconi who sought to commercialize his work with radio waves, Bose was purely interested in radio waves as a scientific endeavor.
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

The name Bose will be forever engraved in Physics via the so-called Bosons ... particles that obey Bose-Einstein statistics and are characterized by having an integral value of intrinsic spin ...

All the efforts toward formulating a unified theory of physics are centered on identifying the critical Gauge Bosons and Higgs Bosons ...
Ashutosh
BRFite
Posts: 150
Joined: 04 Mar 2002 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Ashutosh »

There seems to be some confusion here atleast in my mind: there are four Bose that are quite famous.. They are:

1) Jagdish Chandra Bose - Botanist.
2) Amar Bose - electronics guy; "Bose" speakers
3) Satyendra Nath Bose - theoretical physics; Bose-Einstein condensate.
4) Subhash Chandra Bose - well.
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by Ashutosh:
There seems to be some confusion here atleast in my mind: there are four Bose that are quite famous.. They are:

1) Jagdish Chandra Bose - Botanist.
2) Amar Bose - electronics guy; "Bose" speakers
3) Satyendra Nath Bose - theoretical physics; Bose-Einstein condensate.
4) Subhash Chandra Bose - well.
yup ... its S.N. Bose who is the most famous in Physics.
S Bajwa
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 91
Joined: 11 Jan 1999 12:31
Location: pittsburgh,pa, usa
Contact:

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by S Bajwa »

you gotta be kidding ...

Sardarji's from India came to California a 100 years ago ... they settled in Yuba City and ended up owning serious amounts of agricultural land ...

anither matter that these same dudes funded the Khalistan Movement ...

but, in today's relaxed times, they are Desis that out-distance you or me by a 100 years :-)
100 Years ago Canada and India were being ruled by British government so you could just get on a ship at Calcutta and land at Vancouver without any Visas. Many
Sikhs migrated not only to Canada but also to Malaysia, Australia, UK, Singapore, etc (British colonies).

Most of the Sikhs first settled at Vancouver (first gurdwara established) working at Lumber yards, many crossed the border and settled at Portland (Second Gurdwara), Oregon and others went even south and settled at Yuba City (third gurdwara). They were mostly men from Punjab (Sikhs and Hindus) and local american laws probihited "non whites" marrying white women, they married Spainish women.

It is sad to see people not knowing the Ghadar movement of early 1910s that was launched from USA where many revolutionaries when Kartar Singh Sarabha and Lala Hardyal being the prominent leaders started newspapers called "Ghadar" means "revolution" to free India from British . Over 20 of such Punjabi and Bengali Sikhs, Hindus and muslims went to India to spread awareness (Ghadar) among Indian soldiers., The plan was to start a Mutiny at three big cantonments around delhi on one day but it was at the last moment (2 days before mutiny) some traitor leaked it to British and all Indian forces in North Indian cantonments were de-weaponized.
20+ Ghadriites were arrested and martyred (hanged till death including 17 years old Kartar singh Sarabha who left his career at Berkeley to struggle to free India).
Many escaped to Afghanistan.

Then British stopped the direct emigration to Canada but one Sikh named Gurditt Singh rented a ship from a Japanese company called Kamagata Maru and started
for Vancouver (from Calcutta with mostly Punjabi Sikhs, Hindus and some muslim passengers who wanted to go to Canada looknig for work) the ship was not allowed at Vancouver port and had to return back to Calcutta where all passengers were arrested after 1-2 hours of firiring (scores killed).

Ghadar revolution was started back in 1908-1910 from USA/Canada by NRIs.

now. for India's contribution to science and technology.

The term fiber optics was coined by Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany.
Aarya
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 13
Joined: 29 Aug 2003 11:31
Location: Washington, DC

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Aarya »

Originally posted by George J:
Bose sux. Try Cadence for truly desi speakers.
or Avalons
Varun Shekhar
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 7
Joined: 09 Mar 2004 12:31
Location: Toronto, CANADA

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Varun Shekhar »

I can only name names and mention what they worked in, someone else has to provide the details:

Jayant Narlikar-astrophysics-theory of gravity

C.K.N Patel-inventor of carbon dioxide laser

Raj Chandra Bose( there's that name again)-mathematics-Statistics

M.M Suri- Suri transmission-used in locomotives

R.S Krishnan-physics-colloid optics

Devendra Lal-pioneer in Geocosmochemistry
George J

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by George J »

I think rather than focussing just on 'contribution' we should also be aware of current luminaries in their respective fields. Here's who I know off:

Macroeconomics and trade policy: Vinod Thomas

Statistics: P.C Mahalanobis and C.R Rao

Econometrics: Damodar Gujarati

Psychometrics: Namboodari
Sridhar
BRFite
Posts: 838
Joined: 01 Jan 2001 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Sridhar »

Originally posted by George J:
Statistics: P.C Mahalanobis and <B>C.M Rao</B>
You mean <B>C.R.Rao</B>.
George J

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by George J »

Originally posted by Sridhar:
Originally posted by George J:
Statistics: P.C Mahalanobis and C.M Rao
You mean C.R.Rao.
Yep C.R not C.M
AJay
BRFite
Posts: 107
Joined: 09 Mar 2003 12:31
Location: USA

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by AJay »

Originally posted by George J:
Originally posted by Sridhar:
You mean C.R.Rao.
Yep C.R not C.M
C.R. Rao has two theorems/inequalities which have his name in them...

Rao-Kramer inequality

Rao-Blackwell theorem

Does anybody know whether C.R.Rao was at UIUC? Blackwell got a distinguished alumin award of UIUC. Was CR Rao his student or the otherway around, or are they peers?
George J

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by George J »

Professor C.R. Rao is among the world leaders in statistical science over the last six decades. His research, scholarship and professional services have had a profound influence in theory and applications of statistics. Technical terms such as, Cramer-Rao inequality, Rao-Blackwellization, Rao’s Score Test, Fisher-Rao Theorem, Rao distance and orthogonal arrays (described as “new manthra” for industries) appear in all standard books on statistics. Two of his papers appear in Breakthroughs in Statistics in the last century.

Professor Rao earned his Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees at Cambridge University, UK, with Professor R. A. Fisher as supervisor, and has received 28 Honorary Doctoral degrees from universities in sixteen countries around the world. He held several important positions, as the Director of the Indian Statistical Institute, Jawaharlal Nehru Professor and National Professor in India, University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and Eberly Professor of Statistics at the Pennsylvania State University.
I must confess I didnt know that 'Mahalanobis' (sounds Greek) was an Indian till a few months ago, when one of my profs was waxing eloquently about the brilliance of statisticians from India. Then when i looked up his bio on ISI's website I was totally floored by his work and effort.
K Joishy
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 1
Joined: 05 Apr 2004 11:31
Location: Sri Venkataramana Devasthana, Karkala, Karnataka, India

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by K Joishy »

Hey wait a minute...

J.C. BOSE: CAN WE CALL HIM THE FATHER OF RADIO?

:confused:

According to this, JCB was the physicist AND botanist...
Originally posted by Alok Niranjan:
Originally posted by Ashutosh:
There seems to be some confusion here atleast in my mind: there are four Bose that are quite famous.. They are:

1) Jagdish Chandra Bose - Botanist.
2) Amar Bose - electronics guy; "Bose" speakers
3) Satyendra Nath Bose - theoretical physics; Bose-Einstein condensate.
4) Subhash Chandra Bose - well.
yup ... its S.N. Bose who is the most famous in Physics.
gashish
BRFite
Posts: 272
Joined: 23 May 2004 11:31
Location: BRF's tailgate party, aka, Nukkad thread

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by gashish »

Thomas Kailath: A well-known figure in Information thoery, Control Systems. He is alumni of COE,Pune
If I'm not mistaken, he is the first Indian to get doctorate in EE from MIT.

Ashish
Guha
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 17
Joined: 23 Jun 2003 11:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Guha »

Current luminaries:

1) C. N. R. Rao (another Rao!) in Solid State Chemistry

http://www.jncasr.ac.in/cnrrao/cnr_research.htm

2) M Vidyasagar in non-linear systems theory
http://www.imahal.com/interviews/vidyasagar_05_00/biography.htm

http://atcweb.atc.tcs.co.in/~sagar/bio.html
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by Joishy:
Hey wait a minute...

here is a short bio on S.N. Bose ...

http://www.vigyanprasar.com/scientists/snbose/bose.htm

He and C.V. Raman were the luminaries in the earlier half of the last century ... Raman was honored with the Nobel ... Bose also should have been.

they didn't do it while he was alive, and then it was too late ... http://physicsweb.org/article/news/5/10/5/1
Baruah
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 13
Joined: 27 Oct 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Baruah »

There are lot of significant contributions by Indians to Computer Science & Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Off the top of my head, some of them are,

==============

Raj Reddy - Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Turing Award, 1995
Dean of Carnegie Mellon University Computer Science Dept.

Citation for Turing:
For pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology.

==============

Ravi Sethi - Compiler Design & Analysis of Algorithms

ACM Fellow
Computing and Mathematical Sciences Research Division, Bell Laboratories
President of Avaya Labs.

Author of the classic: Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools, Addison-Wesley.

==============

Mahindra Agarwal - Computational Complexity Theory

Deterministic polynomial-time algorithm for primality testing.
AJay
BRFite
Posts: 107
Joined: 09 Mar 2003 12:31
Location: USA

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by AJay »

Originally posted by Baruah:

Raj Reddy - Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Ravi Sethi - Compiler Design & Analysis of Algorithms
Mahindra Agarwal - Computational Complexity Theory
Narendra Karmarkar for practical psuedo-polynomial time algorithm for LP as well as solving very large TSP problems. Currently he is in Pune setting up a Computational Mathematics group for TIFR at Univ. of Pune.

Added later

Arun Netravali for MPEG
Baruah
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 13
Joined: 27 Oct 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Baruah »

Originally posted by AJay:
Arun Netravali for MPEG
...and HDTV.
Vijnan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 25
Joined: 04 Jan 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Vijnan »

Was CR Rao his student or the otherway around, or are they peers?
They are peers. CR Rao was the student of Fisher.
Short bio of C.R Rao : http://www.statconsortium.umd.edu/shortbio.htm
cbelwal

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by cbelwal »

There have many valuable contributors in ancient India

Aryabhatta - Value of PI, Tables of Sines, Deduced that Earth is round 400 BC

Shushruta - Pioneered Surgery including Cataract 800 BC Wrote the book Shushruta-Samahita

....add others to the list...

Rekha-Ganita ( Geomtery ), and Algebra , concept of Gravity among were documented in the Vedas.

If somehas has taken a look at the book 'Vedic Mathematics' you will be amazed at the advancement of calculation methods at that time. This book is available in bookstores in India and is a must have.
abhishek
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 70
Joined: 07 Jun 2004 11:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by abhishek »

Narendra Karmarkar

I don't know how many of you have heard about this guy. But for people in Operations research, Industrial Engineering, Mathematics and Computer science all over the world, his name is very common. After an extra-ordinary career in the USA, he returned to India and he is currently with TIFR, Mumbai.
Kumar
BRFite
Posts: 259
Joined: 13 Feb 1999 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Kumar »

On the topic of three Boses:

1. JC Bose was a towering figure of his time. His work on radio waves (millimetric waves) was pioneering. He was the first to demonstate that radio waves could be used for communication. If you look at the instruments he built then you realize how much of an inventor he was. I found his twisted jute elliptical polraizer, and a linear polrazer made of sheets of metal put between pages of a book quite amusing and innovative. Too bad that he didn't believe in patenting. If he had patented his invention and marketed it, may be it would have set a revolution in Indian science. Most Indians tend to theoretical studies. JC Bose was more of an instrumentalist/experimentalist. Now every schoolchild knows the name of Marconi, but not that many Indians remember Bose.

2. S. N. Bose was the one who worked out the statistics of bosons and fermions. As was the custom of his days, he had sent his paper to Einstein to review. Einstein forwarded only the boson statistics part of his paper for publication. From where it got its name Bose-Einstein statistics although Einstein didn't have much to do with originally. The other part of his work which dealt with fermions was not forwarded by Einstein for publication. But later it came out through works of Fermi and it is now called Fermi-Dirac statistics.

S.N. Bose was very simple person. he was invited to europe and stayed at Niels Bohr's house as a guest. He apparently threw water on the floor of the bathroom, which apparently didn't amuse Bohr's housekeeper. Bose wasn't accustomed to western bathrooms where you don't throw water on the floor.

3. Bose of the Bose speakers fame. Well, he makes great speakers.

In the experimental fields, CV Raman is of course well known. But some optics people also did some good work. Pancharatnam had originally proposed a 'geometric phase' in optics which turned out to be important in some quantum cases where it is called the Berry's phase. When applied to optics, it was found that Berry's phase was same as what Pancharatnam had proposed. So the geometric-phase in optics is now termed Pancharatnam phase.

Raychowdhury equation is also well known in Astrophysics.

Then we have Chandrasekhar's limit for black holes.
Baruah
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 13
Joined: 27 Oct 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Baruah »

Har Gobind Khorana

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1968
"for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis"

http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1968/khorana-bio.html
Alok Niranjan
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 48
Joined: 30 Dec 2003 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Alok Niranjan »

Originally posted by Ashok Kumar:


2. S. N. Bose was the one who worked out the statistics of bosons and fermions. As was the custom of his days, he had sent his paper to Einstein to review. Einstein forwarded only the boson statistics part of his paper for publication. From where it got its name Bose-Einstein statistics although Einstein didn't have much to do with originally. The other part of his work which dealt with fermions was not forwarded by Einstein for publication. But later it came out through works of Fermi and it is now called Fermi-Dirac statistics.
That is a fascinating story, Ashok ... about Bose having worked out Fermion stats ... do you have a reference for it?

I agree that Bose Statistics should not have Einstein attached to it ... perhaps, Bose-Planck is more acceptable ... even though Planck did not understand the statistics, he did get the ball rolling with his work on black-body radiation. On second thought, perhaps einstein is honored because he did work out the detailed balance bit (or, was that also not his work?).
kgoan
BRFite
Posts: 264
Joined: 30 Jul 2001 11:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by kgoan »

No. I have a copy of Bose's original paper (in one of those "classics of physics compendium"), and the corrections made by Einstein to it. Einstein deserved to have his name on it.

Little trivia: Bose also deduced the "spin" of particles. However Einstein, at the time, said it was to speculative to be published.

When spin did get established, Bose was asked why he didn't formally claim the credit, since Einstein backed his priority claim. Bose apparently replied that "it didn't matter who got the credit, the important thing was the discovery of the knowledge" or words to that effect.

A truely amazing man.
Sridhar
BRFite
Posts: 838
Joined: 01 Jan 2001 12:31

Re: India's Contribution to Science & Technology

Post by Sridhar »

Let me add a poetic contribution to this thread. I wrote a poem in Hindi on New Year's Day 2004 and BR Monitor published it as a Republic Day special. It is about 'scientists' (the term being used somewhat loosely and including 'proto-scientists') of India from ancient times till today. It gives some kind of a summary, though by no means comprehensive, of India's contribution to Science and Technology - the title of this thread.

There is an overlap of people featured in the poem and on this thread.

I also have an extensive glossary for those not very familiar with Hindi and that also contains detailed biographies of all the featured 'scientists'.

Since there are a couple of changes to the poem that have not been updated on BRM, I am providing a link to a non-BRM source first, which I recommend to anybody interested. (President Kalam happened to have read the poem and sent a personal reply, which I have also scanned and put up on this site).

Updated version of the poem
http://www.geocities.com/nsridhar74/naara_purkhon_ka.htm

BRM version
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE6-4/sridhar.html
Post Reply