Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman[2] (7 November 1888 21 November 1970) was an Indian

physicist born in the formerMadras Province in India, who carried out ground-breaking work in the
field of light scattering, which earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics. He discovered that when
light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This
phenomenon, subsequently known as Raman scattering, results from the Raman effect.[3] In 1954
India honoured him with its highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna
C.V.Raman was born to a Tamil Brahmin Iyer family in Thiruvanaikaval, Trichinopoly, (present-day
Tiruchirapalli), Madras PresidencyTamil Nadu, in British India to Parvati Amma.

Family[edit]
Raman's father initially taught in a school in Thiruvanaikaval, became a lecturer of mathematics and
physics in Mrs. A.V. Narasimha Rao College, Vishakapatnam (then Vishakapatnam) in the Indian
state of Andhra Pradesh, and later joined Presidency College in Madras (now Chennai).[1][6]

Early education[edit]
At an early age, Raman moved to the city of Visakhapatnam and studied at St. Aloysius Anglo-Indian
High School. Raman passed his matriculation examination at the age of 11 and he passed his F.A.
examination (equivalent to today's Intermediate exam,PUC/PDC and +2) with a scholarship at the
age of 13.
In 1902, Raman joined Presidency College in Madras where his father was a lecturer in mathematics
and physics.[7] In 1904 he passed his Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) examination of University of Madras: He
stood first and won the gold medal in physics. In 1907 he gained his Master of Arts (M.A.) degree
with the highest distinctions from University of Madras. [1]

Career[edit]
In 1917, Raman resigned from his government service after he was appointed the first Palit
Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta. At the same time, he continued doing research at
the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Calcutta, where he became the
Honorary Secretary. Raman used to refer to this period as the golden era of his career. Many
students gathered around him at the IACS and the University of Calcutta.

On 28 February 1928, Raman led experiments at the IACS with collaborators, including K. S.
Krishnan, on the scattering of light, when he discovered what now is called the Raman effect. [8] A
detailed account of this period is reported in the biography by G. Venkatraman. [9] It was instantly
clear that this discovery was of huge value. It gave further proof of the quantum nature of light.
Raman had a complicated professional relationship with K. S. Krishnan, who surprisingly did not
share the award, but is mentioned prominently even in the Nobel lecture. [10]

Raman spectroscopy came to be based on this phenomenon, and Ernest Rutherford referred to it in
his presidential address to the Royal Society in 1929. Raman was president of the 16th session of
the Indian Science Congress in 1929. He was conferred a knighthood, and medals and honorary
doctorates by various universities. Raman was confident of winning the Nobel Prize in Physics as
well, but was disappointed when the Nobel Prize went to Owen Richardson in 1928 and to Louis de
Broglie in 1929. He was so confident of winning the prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even
though the awards were to be announced in November, and would scan each day's newspaper for
announcement of the prize, tossing it away if it did not carry the news. [11] He did eventually win the
1930 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the
Raman effect".[12] He was the first Asian and first non-white to receive any Nobel Prize in the
sciences. Before him Rabindranath Tagore (also Indian) had received the Nobel Prize for Literature
in 1913.
Raman and Suri Bhagavantam discovered the quantum photon spin in 1932, which further
confirmed the quantum nature of light.[13]
Raman had association with the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi; he attended the foundation
ceremony of BHU[14] and delivered lectures on "Mathematics" and "Some new paths in physics"
during the lecture series organised at BHU from February 5 to 8, 1916. [15] He also held the position of
permanent visiting professor at BHU.[16]
During his tenure at IISc, he recruited the talented electrical engineering student, G. N.
Ramachandran, who later went on to become a distinguished X-ray crystallographer.
Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He worked out the theory
of transverse vibration of bowed strings, on the basis of superposition velocities. He was also the
first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and
the mridangam.[17] He was also interested in the properties of other musical instruments based on
forced vibrations such as the violin. He also investigated the propagation of sound in whispering
galleries.[18] Raman's work on acoustics was an important prelude, both experimentally and
conceptually, to his later work on optics and quantum mechanics.[19]
Raman and his student, Nagendra Nath, provided the correct theoretical explanation for the acoustooptic effect (light scattering by sound waves), in a series of articles resulting in the celebrated
RamanNath theory.[20] Modulators, and switching systems based on this effect have enabled optical
communication components based on laser systems.
Raman was succeeded by Debendra Mohan Bose as the Palit Professor in 1932. In 1933, Raman
left IACS to join Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore as its first Indian director.[21] Other
investigations carried out by Raman were experimental and theoretical studies on the diffraction of
light by acoustic waves of ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies (published 19341942), and those
on the effects produced by X-rays on infrared vibrations in crystals exposed to ordinary light.

He also started the company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (now known
as TCM Limited) which manufactured potassium chlorate for the matchindustry[22] in 1943 along with
Dr. Krishnamurthy. The Company subsequently established four factories in Southern India. In 1947,
he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India. [23]
In 1948, Raman, through studying the spectroscopic behaviour of crystals, approached in a new
manner fundamental problems of crystal dynamics. He dealt with the structure and properties of
diamond, the structure and optical behaviour of numerous iridescent substances (labradorite,
pearly feldspar, agate, opal, and pearls). Among his other interests were the optics of colloids,
electrical and magnetic anisotropy, and the physiology of human vision.
Raman retired from the Indian Institute of Science in 1948 and established the Raman Research
Institute in Bangalore, Karnataka, a year later. He served as its director and remained active there
until his death in 1970, in Bangalore, at the age of 82.

Personal life[edit]
He was married on 6 May 1907 to Lokasundari Ammal (18921980).[24] They had two sons,
Chandrasekhar and radio-astronomer Radhakrishnan.
Raman was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who later won the Nobel Prize in
Physics (1983) for his discovery of the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on
the nuclear reactions necessary for stellar evolution.

Achievements[edit]
During a voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman noticed the blue colour of glaciers and
the Mediterranean sea. He was motivated to discover the reason for the blue colour. Raman carried
out experiments regarding the scattering of light by water and transparent blocks of ice which
explained the phenomenon.

Raman employed monochromatic light from a mercury arc lamp which penetrated transparent
material and was allowed to fall on a spectrograph to record its spectrum. He detected lines in the
spectrum which he later called Raman lines. He presented his theory at a meeting of scientists in
Bangalore on 16 March 1928, and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930.

Books[edit]
For compact work, see: Scientific Papers of C. V. Raman, S. Ramaseshan (ed.).

Vol. 1 Scattering of Light (Ed. S. Ramaseshan)

Vol. 2 Acoustics

Vol. 3 Optics

Vol. 4 Optics of Minerals and Diamond

Vol. 5 Physics of Crystals

Vol. 6 Floral Colours and Visual Perception