STANDING TALL WITH RAMAN’S LEGACY
The National Science Day is celebrated in India to reminisce the landmark discovery of the Raman Effect by our eminent physicist Sir C.V. Raman on February 28, 1928, and his subsequent felicitation of the Nobel Prize as the first Asian in Physics. The life of Raman has several important points to be chronicled that should be reflected upon and imbibed by our young generation today. First, Raman published his first scientific paper entitled ‘Unsymmetrical diffraction bands due to a rectangular aperture" in the British journal ‘The Philosophical Magazine’ in 1906 while he was a graduate student of only 18 years old. This shows that inclination for path-breaking discoveries should be occupied in one’s mind at a very early age. Second, he contradicted with Lord Rayleigh, the eminent British physicist of that time regarding the explanation for the blue colour of the sea which he believed due to the reflection of the blue sky. Rather than being dogmatic in...
