One of the greatest physicists India has ever produced, Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888, in Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu. His groundbreaking research revolutionized the field of physics, but none was more fascinating than the one that clarified why the sea seems blue.
For his discovery, Professor CV Raman won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics, being the first person of Asian heritage to do so. He received the Nobel Prize for his research on light scattering and for discovering the Raman phenomenon, which bears his name.
Who Was Sir C V Raman?
Raman, the son of a teacher, showed academic prowess from a young age and received a BA from the Presidency College at the University of Madras in 1904 at the age of 16 after winning gold medals in both English and Physics as core courses. At the age of 18, he published his first scientific article on the subject of Unsymmetrical diffraction-bands due to a rectangular aperture in the British magazine Philosophical Magazine.
Raman was appointed a full professor at the University of Calcutta in 1917. In 1924, the British elected him as a fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1930, they knighted him. On a plot of land in Bengaluru that had been given to him by the government of Mysore, he founded the Raman Research Institute in 1948 after serving as the first director of the Indian Institute of Science in 1933. He personally contributed money to the institute along with contributions from other people.
When he got the Nobel Prize for explaining why the water is blue
On December 10, 1930, Professor CV Raman received the Nobel Prize in Physics from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Committee for Physics. He received the honor for his research into light scattering and for discovering the Raman effect.
Although he was a specialist in the study of sound and vibrations before his work on light earned him the Nobel Prize, it was his visit to London that first piqued his interest in light. During his 15-day return voyage aboard the SS Narkunda, he was intrigued to learn the cause of the Mediterranean sea’s deep blue hue.
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