C. V. Raman

About

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was a renowned Indian physicist whose landmark work in the field of light scattering revolutionized molecular physics and modern optics. Born in Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, Raman was a precocious student who completed his degree in physics at Presidency College, Madras, publishing his first scientific paper at the age of eighteen. Though he initially worked for the Indian Finance Department as an accountant, he passionately pursued scientific research in acoustics and optics in his spare time at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in Calcutta. In 1917, he resigned from government service to become the Palit Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta. On February 28, 1928, Raman, alongside his student K. S. Krishnan, discovered that when light passes through a transparent material, a small fraction of the scattered light changes wavelength—a phenomenon that came to be known as the Raman Effect. This breakthrough earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics, making him the first Asian and first non-white individual to receive a Nobel Prize in the sciences. Raman served as the first Indian Director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore from 1933 to 1937 and established the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934. In 1948, he founded the Raman Research Institute, where he actively pursued research on crystals, minerals, and visual perception until his death. In recognition of his immense contributions, he was awarded India's highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna, in 1954.

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