C. V.

Raman
Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman[1] (7 November 1888 21 November
1970) was an Indian physicist born in the former Madras
Province in Indiapresently the state of Tamil Nadu, who carried out ground-
breaking work in the field of light scattering, which earned him the 1930 Nobel
Prize for Physics. He discovered that when light traverses a transparent
material, some of the deflected light changes wavelength. This phenomenon,
subsequently known as Raman scattering, results from the Raman effect.[3] In
1954, India honoured him with its highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.[4][5]
Early education
Raman's father initially taught in a school in Thiruvanaikovil, became a lecturer
in mathematics and physics in Mrs. A.V. Narasimha Rao
College, Visakhapatnam (then Vishakapatnam) in the Indian state of Andhra
Pradesh, and later joined Presidency College in Madras (now Chennai).[2][6]
At an early age, Raman moved to the city of Visakhapatnam and studied at St.
Aloysius Anglo-Indian High School. Raman passed his matriculation
examination at the age of 11 and he passed his F.A. examination (equivalent
to today's Intermediate exam, PUCPDC and +2) with a scholarship at the age
of 13.
In 1902, Raman joined Presidency College in Madras where his father was a
lecturer in mathematics and physics.[7] In 1904 he passed his Bachelor of
Artsexamination of University of Madras. He stood first and won the gold medal in physics. In 1907 he gained
his Master of Sciences degree with the highest distinctions from University of Madras.[2]
Career
In the year 1917, Raman resigned from his government service after he was appointed the first Palit Professor of
Physics at the University of Calcutta. At the same time, he continued doing research at the Indian Association for
the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Calcutta, where he became the Honorary Secretary. Raman used to refer to this
period as the golden era of his career. Many students gathered around him at the IACS and the University of
Calcutta.
On 28 February 1928, Raman led experiments at the IACS with collaborators, including K. S. Krishnan, on the
scattering of light, when he discovered what now is called the Raman effect.[8] A detailed account of this period is
reported in the biography by G. Venkatraman.[5] It was instantly clear that this discovery was of huge value. It gave
further proof of the quantum nature of light. Raman had a complicated professional relationship with K. S. Krishnan,
who surprisingly did not share the award, but is mentioned prominently even in the Nobel lecture.[9]

Personal life
He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal (18921980).[23] They had two sons, Chandrasekhar and
radio-astronomer Radhakrishnan.
Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1983)
for his discovery of the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on the nuclear reactions necessary
for stellar evolution.

Controversies
The Nobel Prize
In the past, several questions were raised about Raman not sharing the Prize with the Russian scientists G.S.
Landsberg and L.I. Mandelstam, who had observed the same effect in the case of crystals. According to the Physics
Nobel Committee:(1) The Russians did not come to an independent interpretation of their discovery as they cited
Raman's article. (2) They observed the effect only in crystals, whereas Raman and K.S. Krishnan in solids, liquids
and gases. With that, he proved the universal nature of the effect. (3) The uncertainties concerning the explanation
of the intensity of Raman- and Infrared lines in the spectra could be explained during the last year. (4) The Raman
method has been applied with great success in different fields of molecular physics. (5) The Raman effect has
effectively helped to check the actual problems of the symmetry properties of molecules thus the problems
concerning the nuclear-spin in the atomic physics." The Nobel Committee proposed Raman's name to the Swedish
National Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, for the Nobel Prize for the year 1930.

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