Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

Born Nov. 7, 1888, in Tiruchirappalli; died Nov. 21, 1970, in Bangalore. Indian physicist. Son of a college instructor.

Raman studied at the university at Madras from 1903 to 1907. In the period 1907–17 he served in the Indian Finance Department, at the same time conducting scientific work in the laboratories of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, in whose organization Raman played a major part. In the years 1917–33 he worked at the University of Calcutta. In 1925 he visited the USSR at the invitation of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1933 he became a professor and director of the Indian Institute of Science, and in 1947 he was named director of the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore. He was president of the Indian Academy of Sciences from 1934.

Raman’s main works dealt with optics, acoustics, and molecular physics. His early investigations concerned nonlinear and parametric vibrations. In 1928, Raman and K. S. Krishnan, simultaneously with L. I. Mandel’shtam and G. S. Landsberg, discovered the Raman effect. Raman interpreted this phenomenon as an optical analogue of the Compton effect. He received a Nobel Prize for his work in 1930.

Raman also wrote works on light diffraction by ultrasonic waves and on the physics of crystals. He did much for the advancement of science in India as an organizer, director of scientific institutions, and teacher. He was a foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1947) and a recipient of the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Nations (1957).