by Gurbir Singh
[209]. Some of the topics that Ramanujan was working on included the following: elementary mathematics, number theory, infinite series, integrals, asymptotic expansions and approximations, hypergeometric functions, q-series, continued fractions, theta functions and modular equations, elliptic functions to alternative bases, class invariants. The following paper provides an overview for readers with a mathematical insight. Berndt, Bruce C. 1998. An Overview of Ramanujan’s Notebooks. Retrieved from http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~berndt/articles/aachen.pdf
[210]. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook names Ramanujan as one of his favourite mathematicians. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNA6TXyWUNE
[211]. For a long time, scientists believed that nothing could ever escape from black holes. Then, in 1974, Professor Stephen Hawking proposed a mechanism by which mass could escape from black holes (known as Hawking Radiation). Mock modular function is being used to help understand how this could work. Aron, Jacob. 2016. Mathematical Proof Reveals Magic of Ramanujan’s Genius. New Scientist. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628904-200-mathematical-proof-reveals-magic-of-ramanujans-genius/
[212]. She received a small pension from the University of Madras until her death in 1994 at the age of 94. During her life, she lived independently. At one stage, she trained and then worked as a tailor. In 1950, her close friend had died leaving her 7-year-old son for whom she became a foster mother. She raised and educated him. He eventually became an officer at the State Bank of India. In 1980s, he took early retirement to look after her in her final few years. Rao, Srinavasan. 2002. Ramanujan’s Wife: Janakiammal (Janaki). Chennai: Institute of Mathematical Sciences.
[213]. Murty, M. Ram and V. Kumar Murty. 2012. The Mathematical Legacy of Srinivasa Ramanujan. India: Springer Science & Business Media. P9.
[214]. Raman is sometimes reported as the first Indian to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society, but he was the second. The first Indian to become a Fellow of the Royal Society was Ardaseer Cursetjee. He was elected a Fellow on 27 May 1841 with the support of the East India Company for his services to naval architecture.
[215]. Kademani, B. S., V. L. Kalyane and A. B. Kademani. 1994. Scientometric Portrait of Nobel Laureate Dr. C.V. Raman. Indian Journal of Information, Library and Society 9 (2): 125–50. Retrieved from http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/11877009.pdf
[216]. Documentary of Sir C.V. Raman. 20 June 2006. Retrieved from http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/documentary-on-sir-cv-raman/article3122049.ece.
[217]. This paper was titled ‘Unsymmetrical diffraction bands due to a rectangular aperture’. It was published in the Philosophical Magazine (London) in 1906.
[218]. Raman had rented a house on Scots Lane, which ran off Bowbazzar Street. The IACS was located on 210 Bowbazzar Street. It is interesting to speculate the direction in which the IACS, Raman and indeed Indian science would have developed had Raman not encountered the IACS. Many of the details in this section come from a special publication to mark the centenary of Raman’s birth. Ramaseshan, S. and C. Ramachandra Rao. 1988. C.V. Raman: A Pictorial Biography. Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences.
[219]. Singh, Rajinder. 2010. C.V. Raman’s Research in Astronomy. Current Science 99 (8): 1127–32, 1130.
[220]. Ibid.
[221]. A reciprocal arrangement existed between countries to subscribe to each other’s scientific publications. For example, when Raman published a paper in the Philosophical Magazine in Britain, it would be available in Science Academies of the German, Swedish and Dutch Philosophical Societies. Singh, Rajinder. 2004. Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman’s Work on Light Scattering: Historical Contributions to a Scientific Biography. Berlin: Logos Verlag. P11.
[222]. Raman, C. V. 1921. Colour of the Sea. Nature 108: 367. Retrieved from http://dspace.rri.res.in/bitstream/2289/2066/1/1921%20Nature%20V108%20p367.pdf
[223]. Raman’s letters in the IISc archives.
[224]. Names of all those who nominated Raman are listed here: http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=7540
[225]. This is how S. Ramaseshan, Raman’s nephew, recalls it in Ramaseshan, S. and C. Ramachandra Rao. 1988. C.V. Raman: A Pictorial Biography. Bangalore: Indian Academy of Sciences. P16. However, science historian Rajinder Singh (in personal communication with the author in January 2016) considers this more likely to be an exaggeration since the telegram in question has not been evidenced.
[226]. Formal Agreement Signed by Raman on 6 October 1932 for the Post of the Director of the IISc. IISC Archives.
[227]. A list of all the applicants is included in the appointment letter dated 19 May 1932 from William Henry Bragg, who chaired the committee responsible for selecting the director. Archives of the IISc.
[228]. Most scientists went to the US. By the late 20th century, two of their collective achievements arguably resulted in the US becoming the dominant nation on the planet. The Manhattan project built the first atomic bomb in 1945, and by 1972, the Apollo programme had taken two dozen men to the Moon and back. Most of the scientists and engineers behind these successes were brought together in the US from different parts of the world. Raman’s cousin Chandrasekhar was asked to join the Manhattan Project in March 1944 by Hans Beth and John von Neumann. Chandrasekhar agreed initially, but by the time the clearance came through in September 1944, he changed his mind and did not go. Wali, Kameshwar C. 1992. Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar. New edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. P196.
[229]. Parameswaran, Uma. 2011. C.V. Raman: A Biography. New Delhi: Penguin Books India. P173.
[230]. Raman’s reference on 30 July 1966 to “shoot men into space and make them walk there” is probably a reference to Alexei Leonov’s spacewalk in March 1965. One of the two cosmonauts on the Voskod spacecraft, Leonov was the first human to walk in space. NASA. 1968. Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1966. Chronology on Science, Technology and Policy. P253.
[231]. Thapar, Romila. 2015. The Public Intellectual in India. Aleph Book Company.
[232]. A total of 6 bosons and 12 fermions make up everything in the universe. Matter is made up of leptons or and quarks, collectively known as fermions. Although leptons can exist as free particles, quarks cannot. Multiple quarks stick together to form familiar particles, like neutrons and protons. There are 6 leptons and 6 quarks making up a total of 12 (or 24 if the antiparticles are included) particles. Each force, gravity, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force and the electromagnetic force, has an associated boson. The electromagnetic force boson is the photon; the weak nuclear force has three variants, W+, W-, z; the strong nuclear force has the gluon and gravity has the graviton (yet to be discovered). The fundamental particles can be categorised in many ways. One is based on the concept of spin. If a particle has half-integral integer spin (that is, -0.5, -1.5, 0.5 or 1.5), it is known as a fermion, which includes the electron, neutrino and quarks. If a particle has an integral integer spin (that is, 0, 1 or 2), it is known as a boson. The Higgs particle is considered to be a boson because it has an integer spin; it is not associated with a force but endows the attribute of mass to other particles. Bosons can share the same quantum states, but fermions cannot (prohibited by the Pauli Exclusion Principle). A concise description of this Standard Model is available here: http://www.physik.uzh.ch/groups/serra/StandardModel.html
[233]. Chatterjee, Santimay, C.K. Majumdar and S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. 1994. S N Bose: The Man and His Work. Calcutta: S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. P55.
[234]. Ibid. P33.
[235]. Wali, Kameshwar C. 2009. Satyendra Nath Bose – His Life and Times: Selected Works. NJ: World Scientific Publishing Company. Pxx
[236]. Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, General Theory of Relativity in 1915, acquired experimental evidence for his Theory of General Relativity in 1919 and received the Nobel Prize in 1921.
[237]. The translation was published as Original Papers by A. E
instein and H. Minkowski, translated into English by M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose with a historical introduction by P.C. Mahalanobis. Translated into English for the first time, it includes the original papers with additions. The published version contained seven sections: (i) Historical Introduction (By Mr. P. C. Mahalanobis), (ii) On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, (iii) Albert Einstein (A short biographical note by Dr. Meghnad Saha), (iv) Principle of Relativity (H. Minkowski’s original paper on the restricted Principle of Relativity, first published in 1909. Translated from the German original by Dr. Meghnad Saha), (v) Appendix to the above by H. Minkowski (Translated by Dr. Meghnad Saha), (vi) The Foundation of the Generalized Theory of Relativity. (A. Einstein's second paper on the Generalised Principle, first published in 1916. Translated from the German original by Mr. Satyendra Nath Bose) and (vii) Notes. An interesting source of information on S. N. Bose is the S. N. Bose Biography Project, blog.snbose.org, maintained by Bose’s grandson Falguni Sarkar.
[238]. Wali, Kameshwar C. 2009. Satyendra Nath Bose – His Life and Times: Selected Works. NJ: World Scientific Publishing Company. Pv.
[239]. Although the existence of dark matter is well established, what it actually is not known. Freitas, R. C. and Gonçalves S. V. B. 2013. Cosmological perturbations during the Bose-Einstein condensation of dark matter. Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233780309_Cosmological_perturbations_during_the_Bose-Einstein_condensation_of_dark_matter
[240]. A fascinating record of personal recollections has been gathered by Bose’s grandson and Bose’s students. http://newweb.bose.res.in/Prof.S.N.Bose-Archive/objects/0022.pdf
[241]. This recollection and other fascinating details have been gathered by Bose’s grandson and Bose’s students. A transcript of the interview is available online: https://sites.google.com/site/snbproject/purnimasinha
[242]. Ibid.
[243]. Ibid.
[244]. Ibid.
[245]. By all accounts, Bose was a quiet, mild-mannered individual, but two interesting references help shed some light on Bose’s political views. One is in the book S N Bose: The Man and His Work (Chatterjee, Santimay, C. K. Majumdar and S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. 1994. S N Bose: The Man and His Work. Calcutta: S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. P107.) Another indicates that his visit to Europe also had a political motivation. Dr. Purnima Sinha had recorded three long interviews with Bose during the last eight months before he died in 1974. In one of them, she asked Bose why he had gone to Paris. He replied “I was informed that my friend Abani Mukherjee (a terrorist nationalist leader who was absconding) was in trouble. I had taken some money for him from the country. After meeting Abani, I thought that I will stay in Paris for a while”. Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/site/snbproject/purnimasinha
[246]. Wali, Kameshwar C. 2009. Satyendra Nath Bose – His Life and Times: Selected Works. NJ: World Scientific Publishing Company. Pxxxiii.
[247]. Deshmukh, Chintamani. 2010. Homi Jahangir Bhabha. New Delhi: National Book Trust. P6.
[248]. Singh, Rajinder. 2008. Indo-American Relations with Reference to Bernard Peters. Indian Journal of History of Science 43.3 (437–454). PP440.
[249]. Antiparticles had been implied in the work of Paul Dirac.
[250]. Pickering, William. 1998. Carl David Anderson 1905-1991. Washington, D. C.: National Academy of Science. P7. Retrieved from http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/anderson-carl-d.pdf
[251]. Bhabha’s paper describing this scattering was read out at the Royal Society on 20 October 1935 and published in the proceedings in the following year. Bhabha, H. J. 1936. The Scattering of Positrons by Electrons with Exchange on Dirac’s Theory of the Positron. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences 154 (881): 195–206.
[252]. Anderson, Robert S. 2010. Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. P100.
[253]. Deshmukh, Chintamani. 2010. Homi Jahangir Bhabha. New Delhi: National Book Trust. P9.
[254]. Bhabha was one of the four Indians who had been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society but had not gone through the formal signing-in ceremony that was always conducted in London. Perhaps because Britain was in a state of war in 1941, the Royal Society for the first time conducted the admissions ceremony in India. Deshmukh, Chintamani. 2010. Homi Jahangir Bhabha. New Delhi: National Book Trust. P19.
[255]. Anderson, Robert S. 2010. Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. P192.
[256]. In 1953, Blackett presented a paper in the Australian capital highlighting his concern on the increasing gap between the rich and poor countries. He asserted that “scientists are responsible to a considerable degree” and that “this vast difference will become the outstanding international problem of the next decades.” Blackett, Patrick. 1953. Rich Countries Are Getting Richer. Text of Presentation - Canberra Australia. D-2004-00200-110 (1-6) 31/3/53. TIFR Archives.
[257]. Bhabha, Homi. 1948. Letter from Bhabha to Blackett Requesting a Meeting to Explore Potential Collaboration in Nuclear Energy Research. D-2004-00200-15 1 – 2. TIFR Archives.
[258]. Raja, Jay and Manoranjan Rao. 18 November 2002. When Thumba Took Off. The Hindu.
[259]. Shah, Amrita. 2007. Vikram Sarabhai: A Life. Illustrated edition. Viking (India). P122.
[260]. Hore, Peter. 2004. Patrick Blackett: Sailor, Scientist, Socialist. Routledge. P258.
[261]. This crash, like most, was the result of compound failures. One of the navigational instruments was not working from the start of the flight, and there was ambiguous air traffic communication, but primarily, the crew failed to correctly identify their location. Descending through the clouds to Geneva airport, the aircraft crashed into Mont Blanc with a loss of all 11 crew and 106 passengers. The harsh winter weather prevented all the wreckage from being recovered at the time of the crash. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Bosons Glacier stretched from the summit of Mont Blanc right down to the valley floor, but now, it has receded to about 1400 m above the valley. Almost half a century after the event, the slow-moving glacier revealed debris from a crash. On 21 August 2012, mountain rescue workers Arnaud Christmann and Jules Bergernear recovered a jute bag on the slopes of the French Ski resort, Camonix. The bag had unexpected markings. Sections of the text that were legible included ‘Diplomatic mail', ‘Ministry of External Affairs' and ‘Indian Government Services’. It was quickly identified as debris from the crash of Boeing 707-437 Air India flight AI 101 on the morning of 24 January 1966. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/08/46-years-later-diplomatic-mail-found-in-alpine-wreckage/.
[262]. Wali, Kameshwar C. 1992. Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar. New edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. P288. Sarabhai was not the first choice to succeed Bhabha as the Chairman of the AEC. In their haste to fill the hole left by the sudden death of Homi Bhabha, the Indian officials had offered the post to Punjab-born astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar then based at the University of Chicago, only to realise later that Chandrasekhar, as an American citizen, was not eligible and should not have been offered it. Chandrasekhar declined the post, paving the way for Sarabhai.
[263]Chapter 5
. Jatia, D. N. 1980. From the Diary of Stephen Smith. New Delhi: The Congress. P57.
[264] . One such mention was Edward Pendray’s writing in March 1945 in Harper’s Magazine. Retrieved from http://epizodsspace.no-ip.org/bibl/inostr-yazyki/harper/1945/pendray.pdf. http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1934/1934%20-%201257.html?search=rocket%20mail. Pendray's publication in the Journal of the American Rocket Society, March 1936, page 19, also records this achievement. Flight International, too, records Smith’s Ship to Shore rocket mail experiments although his name is not mentioned.
[265]. Imperial Airways was a
commercial airways company that operated between 1924 and 1939. It was first merged into the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC). In 1974, BOAC merged with the British European Airways Corporation to create British Airways.
[266] . Hurren, B. J. 1958. Flight Global. P34. http://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1958/1958-1-%20-%200022.PDF.
[267] . Bertolotti, M. 2013. The Discovery: Victor F. Hess and the Balloon Ascents. In Celestial Messengers: Cosmic Rays—The Story of a Scientific Adventure. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer–Verlag. PP33–44. http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~mcdonald/examples/EP/hess_au_33_13.pdf
[268] . Smith, S. H and F. Billig. 1955. Billig’s Specialized Catalogues: Rocket Mail Catalogue, Vol. 8. P62.
[269] . Ibid. P68.
[270] . Putnam, Christopher S. 10 August 2007. One Small Step for Mail. Damn Interesting. Retrieved from http://www.damninteresting.com/one-small-step-for-mail/
[271]. Zucker, J. and I. Baddiel. 2011. Never in a Million Years. Hachette UK.