Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose, His Life and Speeches Part 1

Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose.

by Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose.

On the 30th November, 1858, Jagadis Chunder was born, in a respectable Hindu family, which hails from village Rarikhal, situated in the Vikrampur Pargana of the Dacca District, in Bengal. He pa.s.sed his boyhood at Faridpur, where his father, the late Babu Bhugwan Chunder Bose, a member of the _then_ Subordinate Executive Service was the Sub-Divisional Officer; and it was there that he derived "the power and strength that nerved him to meet the shocks of life."[1]

HIS FATHER

His father was a fine product of the Western Education in our country.

Speaking of him, says Sir Jagadis "My father was one of the earliest to receive the impetus characteristic of the modern epoch as derived from the West. And in his case it came to pa.s.s that the stimulus evoked the latent potentialities of his race for evolving modes of expression demanded by the period of transition in which he was placed. They found expression in great constructive work, in the restoration of quiet amidst disorder, in the earliest effort to spread education both among men and women, in questions of social welfare, in industrial efforts, in the establishment of people's bank and in the foundation of industrial and technical schools."[2] However, his efforts--like most pioneer efforts--failed. He became overpowered in the struggle. But his young son, who witnessed the struggle, derived a great lesson which enabled him "to look on success or failure as one"--or rather "failure as the antecedent power which lies dormant for the long subsequent dynamic expression in what we call success." "And if my life" says Sir Jagadis "in any way came to be fruitful, then that came through the realisation of this lesson."[2] So great was the influence exerted on him by his father that Sir Jagadis Chunder has observed "To me his life had been one of blessing and daily thanksgiving."[2]

HIS EARLY EDUCATION

Little Jagadis received his first lesson in a village _pathsala_. His father, who had very advanced views in educational matters, instead of sending him to an English School, which was then regarded as the only place for efficient instruction, sent him to the vernacular village school for his early education. "While my father's subordinates" says Sir Jagadis "sent their children to the English schools intended for gentle folks, I was sent to the vernacular school, where my comrades were hardy sons of toilers and of others who, it is now fas.h.i.+on to regard, were belonging to the depressed cla.s.ses."[3] Speaking of the effect it produced on him, observes Sir Jagadis "From these who tilled the ground and made the land blossom with green verdure and ripening corn, and the sons of the fisher folk, who told stories of the strange creatures that frequented unknown depths of mighty rivers and stagnant pools, I first derived the lesson of that which const.i.tutes true manhood. From them too I drew my love of nature."[3]

"I now realise" continues Sir Jagadis "the object of my being sent at the most plastic period of my life to the vernacular school where I was to learn my own thoughts and to receive the heritage of our national culture through the medium of our own literature. I was thus to consider myself one with the people and never to place myself in an equivocal position of a.s.sumed superiority."[3]

"The moral education which we received in our childhood" adds Sir Jagadis "was very indirect and came from listening to stories recited by the "Kathaks" on various incidents connected with our great epics. Their effects on our mind was Very great."[4]

And it is very interesting to learn from the lips of Sir Jagadis himself "that the inventive bent of his mind received its first impetus" in the industrial and technical schools established by his father.[4]

HIS COLLEGIATE EDUCATION IN INDIA

After he had developed, in the _pathsala_, some power of observation, some power of reasoning and some power of expression through the healthy medium of his own mother tongue, young Jagadis was sent to an English School for education. He pa.s.sed the Entrance Examination, in 1875, from the St. Xavier's Collegiate School, Calcutta, in the First Division. He then joined the College cla.s.ses of that Inst.i.tution, and there, in the "splendid museum of Physical Science Instruments," he drew his early inspirations in Physics from that remarkable educationist and brilliant experimentalist, the Rev. Father E. Lefont, S.J., C.I.E., M.I.E.E., who had the rare gift of enkindling the imagination of his pupils. He pa.s.sed the First Examination in Arts, in 1877, in the Second Division and the B.A. Examination by the B. Course (Science Course), in 1880, in the Second Division. "It is the paramount duty of the University" says Sir Ashutosh Mookerjea "to discover and develop unusual talent."[5] The Calcutta University, by the test of examination which it applied, totally failed to _discover_ (not to speak of _developing_) the powers of an original mind which was destined to enrich the world by giving away the fruits of its experience.

HIS STUDY ABROAD

After Jagadis had graduated himself, in the Calcutta University, he longed to get a course of scientific education in England. He was sent to Cambridge and joined the Christ's College. He came in "personal contact with eminent men, whose influence extorted his admiration and created in him a feeling of emulation. In the way he owed a great deal to Lord Rayleigh, under whom he worked."[6] He pa.s.sed the B.A.

Examination of the Cambridge University, in Natural Science Tripos, in 1884. He also secured, in 1883, the B.Sc. Degree with Honours of London University. Jagadis had, by birth, the speculative Indian mind. And, by his scientific education, at home and abroad, he developed a capacity for accurate experiment and observation and learnt to control his Imagination--"that wonderous faculty which, left to ramble uncontrolled leads us astray into a wilderness of perplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows; but which, properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the n.o.blest attribute of man; the source of poetic genius, the instrument of discovery in Science."[7] His strength and fertility as a discoverer is to be referred in a great measure to the harmonious blending of the burning Imagination of the East with the a.n.a.lytical methods of the West.

APPOINTED AS A PROFESSOR

After having completed his education abroad. Jagadis chose the teaching of Science as his vocation. He was appointed as Professor of Physical Science at the Presidency College, Calcutta. He joined the service on the 7th January, 1885. Although he was appointed in Cla.s.s IV of the _then_ Bengal Educational Service, (which afterwards merged in the present Indian Educational Service), he was not admitted to the full scale of pay of the Service. He, being an Indian, was allowed to draw only two-thirds the pay of his grade. This humiliating distinction was, however, removed in his case, on the 21st September 1903, when the bureaucracy could not any longer ignore the pressure of enlightened opinion that was brought to bear on it.

HIS RESEARCHES ON ELECTRIC WAVES

It was in 1887, some times after Professor J. C. Bose had joined the Presidency College, Hertz demonstrated, by direct experiment, the existence of Electric Waves--the properties of which had been predicted by Clerk Maxwell long before. This great discovery sent a reverberation through the gallery of the scientific world. And, at once, the scientists in all countries began to devote their best energies to explorations in this new Realm of Nature. Young J. C. Bose--who had drunk deep at the springs of Scientific Knowledge and whose imagination had been very deeply touched by the scientific activities of the West and who had in him the burning desire that India should 'enter the world movement for that advancement of knowledge'--also followed suit.

DIFFICULTIES OF RESEARCHES

When, however, Prof. J. C. Bose joined the Presidency College, there was no laboratory worth the name there, nor had he any of 'those mechanical facilities at his disposal which every prominent European and American experimental scientist commands'. He had to work under discouraging difficulties before he could begin his investigations. He was, however, not a man to quarrel with circ.u.mstances. He bravely accepted them and began to work in his own private laboratory and with appliances which, in any other country, would be deemed inadequate. He applied himself closely to the investigation of the invisible etheric waves and, with the simple means at his command, accomplished things, which few were able to perform in spite of their great wealth of external appliances.

As the wave-length of a Hertzian (electric) ray was very large--about 3 metres[8] long--compared with that of visible light, considerable difficulties were experienced in carrying on experiments with the same.

It was thought, for instance, that very large crystals, much larger than what occur in nature, would be required to show the polarisation of electric ray. Prof. Bose who 'combined in him the inventiveness of a resourceful engineer, with the penetration and imagination of a great scientist'--designed an instrument which generated very short electric waves with a length of about 6 millimetres or so. And, by working with Electric radiations having very short wave-lengths, he succeeded in demonstrating that the electric waves are polarised by the crystal _Nemalite_ (which he himself discovered) in the very same way as a beam of light is polarised by the crystal Tourmaline. He then showed that a large number of substances, which are opaque to Light (_e.g._ pitch, coal-tar etc.) are transparent to Electric Waves. He next determined the Index of Refraction of various substances for invisible Electric Radiation and thereby eliminated a great difficulty which had presented itself in Maxwell's theory as to the relation between the index of refraction of light and the di-electric constant of insulators. He then determined the wave length of Electric Radiation as produced by various oscillators.

HIS EARLY CONTRIBUTIONS AND THEIR APPRECIATIONS

His first contribution was 'On Polarisation of Electric Rays by Double Refracting Crystals.' It was read at a meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, held on the 1st May 1895, and was published in the Journal of the Society in Vol. LXIV, Part II, page 291. His next contributions were 'On a new Electro polariscope' and 'On the Double Refraction of the Electric Ray by a Strained Di-electric.' They appeared, in the _Electrician_, the leading journal on Electricity, published in London.

These 'strikingly original researches' won the attention of the scientific world. Lord Kelvin, the greatest physicist of the age, declared himself 'literally filled with wonder and admiration for so much success in the novel and difficult problem which he had attacked.'

Lord Rayleigh communicated the results of his remarkable researches to the Royal Society. And the Royal Society showed its appreciation of the high scientific value of his investigation, not only, by the publication, with high tributes, of a paper of his 'On the Determination of the Indices of Electric Refraction,' in December 1896, and another paper on the 'Determination of the Wave-length of Electric Radiation,'

in June 1896, but also, by the offer, of their own accord, of an appropriation from the Special Parliamentary Grant made to the Society for the Advancement of Knowledge, for continuation of his work.

In recognition of the importance of the contribution made by Prof. Bose, the University of London conferred on him the Degree of Doctor of Science and the Cambridge University, the degree of M.A., in 1896. And, to crown all, the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain--rendered famous by the labour of Davy and Faraday, of Rayleigh and Dewar--honoured him by inviting to deliver a 'Friday Evening Discourse' on his original work.

It would not be out of place to observe that the rare privilege of being invited to deliver a 'Friday Evening Discourse' is regarded as one of the highest distinction that can be conferred on a scientific man.

HIS FIRST SCIENTIFIC DEPUTATION. (1896-97)

The Government of India showed its appreciation of his work by deputing him to Europe to place the results of his investigations before the learned Scientific Bodies. He remained on his Deputation from the 22nd July 1896 to the 19th April 1897. He read a paper 'On a complete Apparatus for studying the Properties of Electric Waves' at the meeting of British a.s.sociation, held at Liverpool, in 1896. He then communicated a paper 'On the Selective Conductivity exhibited by Polarising Substances,' which was published by the Royal Society, in January 1897.

He next delivered his 'Friday Evening Discourse,' at the Royal Inst.i.tution, 'On Electric Waves,' on the 29th January 1897. "There is, however, to our thinking" wrote the _Spectator_ at the time "something of rare interest in the spectacle presented of a Bengalee of the purest descent possible, lecturing in London to an audience of appreciative European savants upon one of the most recondite branches of the modern physical science." He was then invited to address the Scientific Societies in Paris. "Prof. J. C. Bose" wrote the Review Encyclopedique, Paris "exhibited on the 9th of March before the Sorbonne, an apparatus of his invention for demonstrating the laws of reflection, refraction, and polarisation of electric waves. He repeated his experiments on the 22nd, before a large number of members of the Academie des Sciences, among whom were Poincare, Cornu, Mascart, Lipmann, Cailletet, Becquerel and others. These savants highly applauded the investigations of the Indian Professor." M. Cornu, President of the Academy of Science, was pleased to address Professor Bose as follows:--

"By your discoveries you have greatly furthered the cause of Science.

You must try to revive the grand traditions of your race which bore aloft the torch light of art and science and was the leader of civilization two thousand years ago. We, in France applaud you." This fervent appeal, we shall see, as we proceed, did not go in vain.

He was next invited to lecture before the Universities in Germany. At Berlin, before the leading physicists of Germany, he gave an address on Electric Radiation, which was subsequently published in the _Physikaliscen Gesellschaft Berlin_, in April 1897.

FURTHER RESEARCHES ON ELECTRIC WAVES

Having received the most generous and wide appreciation of his work, Dr.

J. C. Bose continued, with redoubled vigour, his valuable researches on Electric Waves. He studied the influence of thickness of air-s.p.a.ce on total reflection of Electric Radiation and showed that the critical thickness of air-s.p.a.ce is determined by the refracting power of the prism and by the wave-length of the electric oscillations. He next demonstrated the rotation of the plane of polarisation of Electric Waves by means of pieces of twisted jute rope. He showed that, if the pieces are arranged so that their twists are all in one direction and placed in the path of radiation, they rotate the plane of polarisation in a direction depending upon the direction of twists; but, if they are mixed so that there are as many twisted in one direction as the other, there is no rotation.[9] He communicated to the Royal Society the results of his new researches. And the Royal Society published, in November 1897, his papers 'On the Determination of the Index of Refraction of gla.s.s for the Electric Ray' and 'On the influence of Thickness of Air-s.p.a.ce on Total Reflection of Electric Radiation' and, in March 1898, his further contributions 'On the Rotation of Plane of Polarisation of Electric Waves by a twisted structure' and 'On the Production of a "Dark cross"

in the Field of Electro-magnetic Radiation.'

SELF-RECOVERING "COHERER"

The study of Electric Waves by Dr. J. C. Bose led not only to the devising of methods for the production of the shortest Electric Waves known but also to the construction of a very delicate 'Receiver' for the detection of invisible other disturbances. The most sensitive form of detector hitherto known was the "Coherer." One of the forms made by Sir Oliver Lodge consisted simply of a gla.s.s tube containing iron turnings, in contact with which were wire led into opposite ends of the tube. The arrangement was placed in series with a galvanometer and a battery; when the turnings were struck by electric waves, the resistance between loose metallic contacts was diminished and the deflection of the galvanometer was increased. Thus the deflection of the galvanometer was made to indicate the arrival of electric waves. The arrangement was, no doubt, a sensitive one, but, to get a greater delicacy, Dr. Bose used, instead of iron turnings, spiral springs which were pushed against each other by means of a screw.[10] Still the arrangement laboured under one great disadvantage. The 'receiver' had to be tapped between each experiment.

So something better than a 'cohering' receiving was needed--something that was self-recovering, like a human eye. To discover that something, Dr. Bose began a study of the whole theory of 'coherer action.' It was. .h.i.therto believed that the electric waves, by impinging on iron and other metallic particles in contact, brought about a sort of fusion--a sort of 'coherence'--and that the diminution of resistance was the result of that 'coherence.' To satisfy himself as to the correctness of this theory, Dr. Bose engaged himself in a most laborious investigation to find out the action of electric radiation not only on iron particles but on all kinds of matter and ultimately discovered the surprising fact that, though the impact of electric waves generally produced a diminution of resistance, with _pota.s.sium_ there was an _increase_ of resistance after the waves had ceased.[11] This discovery at once showed the untenability of the old theory and pointed to the conclusion that the effect of electric radiation on matter is one of discriminative molecular action--that the Electric Waves produced a re-arrangement of the molecules which may either increase or decrease the contact resistance. It may be incidentally mentioned here that this detection of molecular change in matter under electric stimulation has given rise to a new theory of photographic action.

As a result of his painstaking investigation on the action of Electric Waves on different kinds of matter, Dr. Bose invented a new type of self-recovering electric receiver, "so perfect in its action that the Electrician suggested its use in s.h.i.+ps and in electro-magnetic light-houses for the communication and transmission of danger-signals at sea through s.p.a.ce. This was, in 1895, several years in advance of the present wireless system." Practical application of the results of Dr.

Bose's investigations appeared so important that the Governments of Great Britain and the United States of America granted him patents for his invention of a certain crystal receiver which proved to be the most sensitive detector of the wireless signal. Dr. Bose, however, has made no secret at any time as to the construction of his apparatus. He has never utilised the patents granted to him for personal gain. His inventions are "open to all the world to adopt for practical and money-making purposes." "The spirit of our national culture" observes Sir J. C. Bose "demands that we should for ever be free from the desecration of utilising knowledge for personal gain."[12]

HIS RESEARCHES TAKE A NEW TURN

This inquiry which Dr. J. C. Bose started for the purpose of ascertaining 'coherer action'--why the "receiver" had to be tapped in order to respond again to electric waves--took him unconsciously to the border region of physics and physiology and gave an altogether new turn to his researches. "He found that the uncertainty of the early type of his receiver was brought on by 'fatigue' and that the curve of fatigue of his instrument closely resembled the fatigue curve of animal muscle."[13] He did not stop there but pushed on his investigations and found "that the 'tiredness' of his instrument was removed by suitable stimulants and that application of certain poisons, on the other hand, permanently abolished its sensitiveness." He was amazed at this discovery--this parallelism in the behaviour of the 'receiver' to the living muscle. This led him to a systematic study of all matter, Organic and Inorganic, Living and Non-Living.

RESPONSE IN LIVING AND NON-LIVING