Homi Bhabha

Homi Bhabha was a bachelor, a man who fully devoted his life to science. He was also a painter who loved classical music and opera.

He was abroad the Air India Flight 101 which crashed near Mont Blanc in the Alps on 24 January, 1966. He died in that plane crash.

He was born into the home of a well known Parsi lawyer Jehangir Hormusji Bhabha and his wife Meheren. His family was very wealthy and prominent, and he was related to Dorabji Tata.

After receiving his primary education at Bombay’s Cathedral and John Connon School, he went to Elphinstone College. Then he studied at the Royal Institute of Science till 1927.

His parents and uncle Dorab Tata wanted the brilliant young Homi to study mechanical engineering from Cambridge University so that he could join Tata Steel Mills upon his return to India.

Homi went to Cambridge University where he began studying mechanical engineering. But he realized that his true calling wasn’t engineering but the pursuit of science. He told his parents of this issue.

His father, a considerate person, promised to finance Homi’s further studies in science provided he completed his mechanical engineering in first class. He passed the mechanical engineering exam in 1930 with first class.

During his studentship, he also worked with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen along with his research work at Cambridge. He published a paper in the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A’, in 1935 in which he gave the calculation to determine the cross section of electron-positron scattering.

Along with Niels Bohr he published a paper, ‘The Passage of Fast Electrons and the Theory of Cosmic Showers’ in 1936 in which they described how primary cosmic rays from outer space interact with the upper atmosphere.

For his work Bhabha was awarded the Senior Studentship in 1937 which helped him continue his work at Cambridge. In 1939 he went to India for a brief vacation when the World War II broke out and this prevented him from returning to Cambridge.

He accepted a position in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, as a Reader in the Department of Physics which was then headed by the eminent physicist, C.V.Raman.

In 1944, Bhabha felt that India needed laboratories and facilities to conduct research in nuclear science. Thus he decided to solicit the support of the visionary and industrialist, Dorabji Jamsetji Tata

Hailed as the father of India’s nuclear power programme, Homi Bhabha was a visionary who foresaw the need for high quality facilities in the country to conduct research on nuclear power. He envisioned the three stage nuclear power programme which focused on extracting power from thorium instead of uranium reserves.