Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman, popularly known as C.V.Raman was born in Thiruchinapalli, in Tamil Nadu on 7th November 1888. At a very early age, Raman moved to the city of Vishakapatnam, which is in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
At the age of eleven he finished his secondary school education and two years later moved to the prestigious Presidency College in Madras. In 1904, when he was fifteen, he received B.A with Honors in Physics and English. He gained his M.A degree in 1907 obtaining the highest distinctions.
He became Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta in 1917. He worked there till 1948. And then he became the Director of the Raman Institute of Research at Bangalore which was established and endowed by him.
The Raman Effect:
Raman spent a long time in the study of scattered light. On February 28, 1928 he observed two low intensity spectral line corresponding to the incident mono-chromatic light. Years of his labor had borne fruit. The 16th of March 1928 is a memorable day in the history of science. On that day, Raman announced the new phenomenon discovered by him to the world. It became famous as the “Raman Effect”.
The Raman Effect confirmed that the light was made up of particles known as ‘photons’. It helped in the study of the molecular and crystal structures of different substances. During the first twelve years after its discovery, about 1800 research papers were published on various aspects of it and about 2500 chemical compounds were studied.
The Essay on Measurement Of Molecular Excitation Spectra By Laser Raman Effect
... above, polarization plays a significant role in the Raman effect. Essentially all light scattering is based on the fact that ... III. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Generically, any light source can be used to study the Raman effect. Raman himself used sunlight before switching ... compounds. In the same year, P. Pringsheim [2] labeled this new scattering phenomenon the Raman effect and therefore the spectrum ...
Raman received many honors from all over the world for his achievement. In 1928 the Science Society of Rome awarded the Matteucci Medal. The British made him a knight of the British Empire in 1929 and from then on he came to be known as Professor Sir C.V.Raman. The following year he was honored with the prestigious Hughes medal from the Royal society. Honorary Doctorate degrees were awarded by the universities of Freiburg (Germany), Glasgow (England), Paris (France), Bombay, Benaras, Patna, Mysore, and several others. In 1930, the Swedish Academy of Sciences chose Raman to receive the Noble prize for Physics. No Indian and no Asian have received this award upto that time.
The Executive Committee of the Academy named the centre ‘Raman Research Institute’. In 1948, he became the Director of that Institute.
At the Madras session in 1969, he discussed the influence of the earth’s rotation on its gaseous envelop. Next year he put forward his theory of the physiology of vision.
The greatest honor the Government of India confers on an Indian is the award of ‘Bharat Ratna’. Raman became a ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1954.
A few days before his 83 birthday Raman suffered a mild heart attack. He passed away on the 21st of November 1970. He was called the ‘Grand Old Man of Indian Science’.
