Whenever we hear about February 28, the first thoughts flashing through our minds will be the 28 days of February and leap year once in every four years. But do you know February 28 is a special day for Indians and that it’s related to one of the greatest contribution given by an Indian scientist to the whole world? Yes, it’s the day which Sir. C.V.Raman gave Raman Effect to the whole world, for which he got Nobel Prize in 1930.

Sir Chandrasekhar Raman, shortly known as C.V.Raman is still remembered all over the world for Raman Effect and a few other contributions related to Physics. To honour him for this great contribution, Indians celebrate February 28 as National Science Day. This practice was initialized in the year 1987 by National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) with the aim of bringing common people close to Science through discussions, seminars, public conferences, speeches and similar activities. It was initialized just 1 year before 100^th birth anniversary of this great genius.

 Sir C.V.Raman was born on November 7, 1888 in Thirichirapilly of Tamil Nadu. His father was a college professor in Mathematics and Physics. His mother’s name was Parvathy Ammal. From Madras Presidency College, he completed degree with gold medal and from Madras University, got first rank in post graduation. Then he joined Indian Civil services in Kolkatta as Assistant Accountant General. Then he did research in Indian Association of Cultivation of Science. In 1917, he became a professor of Kolkatta University.  Later he served the nation as Director of Indian Institute of Sceinece and Raman Research Institute and professor of many institutions. He passed away in 1970, November 21^st.

Honours and achievements

 Honour of ‘Sir’ by British Government, Nobel Prize of 1930, Rajya Sabha Bhushan of Mysore Maha Rajya sabha in 1935, Franklin medal of America in 1941, Bharat Ratna in 1954 and Lenin Award of Soviet Union in 1957 are the honours achievement by Sir C.V.Raman.

The story behind Raman Effect

In 1921, he was travelling by a ship to London. When he was observing sea so deep, a thought flashed through his mind, “Why sea is blue?” His observations and researches paved way to Raman Effect in 1928. He found that sea water disperses sunlight into different colours and as blue has less wave length blue shades reflects on sea easily giving us the impulse of blue seas. He also discovered that according to the characteristics of transmission media also, slight colour change occurs. When a single colour sun ray passes through transparent liquid medium, it disperses to different colours. This discovery was later known as Raman Effect for which he got Nobel Prize for Physics. To measure the wave length of sun rays and to study the structure of molecules, Raman spectrum is used now also.

Article Posted By : Sandhya Rani  On March 03, 2013lView All Articles

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Keywords :
C.V.Raman , Raman effect , February 28 , National science day