C.V. Raman

He married Lokasundari Ammal in 1907 and had two sons with her—Chandrasekhar and Radhakrishnan.

He lived a long and productive life and was active till the very end. He died in 1970 at the age of 82.

He was born near a small village in Tiruchirapalli to R. Chandrasekhara Iyer and Parvathi Ammal. His father, initially a school teacher, became a lecturer in mathematics and physics in a college in Vishakhapatnam.

Raman studied in St. Aloysius Anglo-Indian High School at Vishakapatnam. He was a brilliant student and passed his matriculation examination when he was just 11. At the age of 13 he passed his F.A. examination (equivalent to today’s intermediate examination) with a scholarship.

He joined the Presidency College in Madras in 1902 and received his B.A. in physics in 1904. He topped the exams and won a gold medal. Three years later, he earned his M.A. degree in 1907.

Though he was deeply interested in science, he appeared for the Financial Civil Service (FCS) examination at the insistence of his father. He topped the examination and went to Calcutta in 1907 to join the Indian Finance Department as Assistant Accountant General.

Still his heart was in scientific research and he began conducting research at the Indian Association for Cultivation of Sciences during his free time. His job was very hectic, yet he was so dedicated towards science that he often spent nights at research.

Even though the facilities available at the association were very limited, it did not deter Raman at all who went on to publish his findings in leading international journals like ‘Nature’, ‘The Philosophical Magazine’, and ‘Physics Review’. During this time, his research was basically in the areas of vibrations and acoustics.

In 1917, he got the opportunity to join the University of Calcutta as the first Palit Professor of Physics. Raman happily resigned from his government post to take up this position though the new job paid much less than the previous one. Such was his dedication to science.

In 1919, he was made the Honorary Secretary of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, a post he held till 1933. He was very popular and many students gathered around him, attracted by his immense knowledge of science.

He is best known for discovering the ‘Raman Effect’, or the inelastic scattering of a photon. He showed through experimentation that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This was a ground breaking discovery in early 20th century physics.