Satyendra Nath Bose was an Indian physicist specialising in theoretical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, providing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate.
Background
Satyendra Nath Bose was born on January 1, 1894 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India. He was the eldest of seven children in a Bengali Kayastha family. He was the only son, with six sisters after him. His ancestral home was in the village Bara Jagulia, in the then district of Nadia, in the Bengal Presidency.
Education
His schooling began at the age of five, near his home. When his family moved to Goabagan, Satyendra Nath Bose was admitted into the New Indian School. In the final year of school, he was admitted into the Hindu School. He passed his entrance examination (matriculation) in 1909 and stood fifth in the order of merit.
Satyendra Nath Bose next joined the intermediate science course at the Presidency College, Calcutta, where his teachers included Jagadish Chandra Bose, Sarada Prasanna Das, and Prafulla Chandra Ray. Bose chose mixed (applied) mathematics for his Bachelor of Science and passed the examinations standing first in 1913 and again stood first in the MSc mixed mathematics exam in 1915. It is said that his marks in the Master of Science examination created a new record in the annals of the University of Calcutta, which is yet to be surpassed.
After completing his Master of Science, Satyendra Nath Bose joined the University of Calcutta as a research scholar in 1916 and started his studies in the theory of relativity. It was an exciting era in the history of scientific progress. Quantum theory had just appeared on the horizon and important results had started pouring in.
Career
From 1916 to 1921, Satyendra Nath Bose was a lecturer in the physics department of the University of Calcutta. He prepared the first book in English based on German and French translations of original papers on Einstein's special and general relativity in 1919. In 1921, he joined as Reader of the department of Physics of the recently founded University of Dhaka (in present-day Bangladesh). He set up whole new departments, including laboratories, to teach advanced courses for MSc and BSc honours and taught thermodynamics as well as James Clerk Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism.
Satyendra Nath Bose, along with Saha, presented several papers in theoretical physics and pure mathematics from 1918 onwards. In 1924, while working as a Reader (Professor without a chair) at the Physics Department of the University of Dhaka, he wrote a paper deriving Planck's quantum radiation law without any reference to classical physics by using a novel way of counting states with identical particles. This paper was seminal in creating the very important field of quantum statistics. Though not accepted at once for publication, he sent the article directly to Albert Einstein in Germany. Einstein, recognising the importance of the paper, translated it into German himself and submitted it on Bose's behalf to the prestigious Zeitschrift für Physik. As a result of this recognition, Bose was able to work for two years in European X-ray and crystallography laboratories, during which he worked with Louis de Broglie, Marie Curie, and Einstein.
Satyendra Nath Bose was then made Head of the Department of Physics at Dhaka University. He continued guiding and teaching at Dhaka University. He designed equipment himself for an X-ray crystallography laboratory. He set up laboratories and libraries to make the department a center of research in X-ray spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, magnetic properties of matter, optical spectroscopy, wireless, and unified field theories. He also published an equation of state for real gases with Meghnad Saha. He was also the Dean of the Faculty of Science at Dhaka University until 1945.
When the partition of India became imminent (1947), he returned to Calcutta and taught there until 1956. He insisted every student design his own equipment using local materials and local technicians. He was made professor emeritus on his retirement. He then became Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan. He returned to the University of Calcutta to continue research in nuclear physics and complete earlier works in organic chemistry. In subsequent years, he worked in applied research such as extraction of helium in hot springs of Bakreshwar.
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"I have got all the recognition I deserve."
Membership
Satyendra Nath Bose became an adviser to then newly formed Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He was the President of Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science. He was elected General President of the Indian Science Congress. He was the Vice-President and then the President of Indian Statistical Institute. In 1958, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science
Indian Science Congress
Indian Statistical Institute
Personality
As a polyglot, Satyendra Nath Bose was well versed in several languages such as Bengali, English, French, German and Sanskrit as well as the poetry of Lord Tennyson, Rabindranath Tagore and Kalidasa.
He could play the esraj, an Indian musical instrument similar to a violin. He was actively involved in running night schools that came to be known as the Working Men's Institute.
Quotes from others about the person
Partha Ghose has stated that: "Bose's work stood at the transition between the 'old quantum theory' of Planck, Bohr and Einstein and the new quantum mechanics of Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Born, Dirac and others."
Kedareswar Banerjee, head of the Physics Department, University of Allahabad, in a letter of 12 January 1956 wrote to the Nobel Committee as follows: "Satyendra Nath Bose made very outstanding contributions to Physics by developing the statistics known after his name as Bose statistics. In recent years this statistics is found to be of profound importance in the classifications of fundamental particles and has contributed immensely in the development of nuclear physics. During the period from 1953 to date he has made a number of highly interesting contributions of far-reaching consequences on the subject of Einstein’s Unitary Field Theory."
In his book The Scientific Edge, physicist Jayant Narlikar observed: "Bose's work on particle statistics (c. 1922), which clarified the behaviour of photons (the particles of light in an enclosure) and opened the door to new ideas on statistics of Microsystems that obey the rules of quantum theory, was one of the top ten achievements of 20th century Indian science and could be considered in the Nobel Prize class."
Connections
In 1914, at age 20, Satyendra Nath Bose married Ushabati Ghosh, the 11-year-old daughter of a prominent Calcutta physician. They had nine children, two of whom died in early childhood.
Father:
Surendranath Bose
References
Satyendra Nath Bose - His Life and Times: Selected Works
Satyendra Nath Bose became a legendary figure of science in the 20th century in India with his revolutionary discovery on the nature of radiation. Despite the association with Einstein, however, little is known about him outside of India. This book highlights the remarkable intellect and the extraordinary personality of Bose set against the backdrop of a rich Bengali cultural tradition and British-Indian politics.
History of the Calcutta School of Physical Sciences
This book highlights the role of Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, founder of the Calcutta school of physics and the Calcutta Mathematical Society, and his talented scholars – Sir C.V. Raman, D.M. Bose, S.N. Bose, M.N. Saha, Sir K.S. Krishnan and S.K. Mitra – all of whom played a significant role in fulfilling their goal of creating an outstanding school of physical sciences in the city of Calcutta.