Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman - A Legend of Modern Indian Science : 2.

CHANDRASEKHARA VENKATA RAMAN,popularly known as C.V Raman,was born at Trichinopoly,Tamil Nadu,India,on November 7,1888.He was the second son of R.Chandrasekhara Iyer and Parvathi Ammal. R.Chandrasekhara Iyer was a professor of mathematics at A.V.N College,Andhra Pradesh.Parbati,the wife of R.C Iyer,was a devout lady who spent most of her time in prayer.


Raman was a brilliant student throughout his educational career;he matriculated at 12,graduated at 15,and recieved master’s degree at 17.Raman studied very hard for the final year exam of B.A. When the result of the B.A examination was published,Raman came first in the whole state of Madras.Similarly Raman secured first position in the M.A.examination and was awarded with the gold madal.


When C.V Raman was studying for an M.A.,he wrote two articles,one on acoustics and the other on light.These articles were published in two of London’s scientific magazines ,these articles were excellent,and senior scientists of England praised Raman’s brilliant theories on the study of light.


As Raman did not come from a rich family,he had to find a suitable job.He finally decided to sit the”Indian Financial Service”examination.He got through the examination and was selected as an Assistant Accountant General,a high ranking post,at the young age of 19.He was posted to Calcutta.


Raman found the post of an Assitant Accountant General was quite exciting but more challenging.Being a high level officer his responsibility was very serious he had to be busy most of the day and would get very little time for his studies and experiments.As a consequence he began to study late into the night.Many Indian and British friends of Raman were surprised when C.V.Raman published one after another many well-researched papers in many reputable science journals.These erudite papers of C.V.Raman duly attracted the attention of major scientists both in India and abroad.He remained in the Government job for ten years,but during this period he managed to publish more than 30 research papers,this was by no means a small number.

To be continued  ...