Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937)

Jagadis Chandra Bose was born in a village in Dhaka district of erstwhile East Bengal, now Bangladesh. His father was a deputy magistrate. He did not want his son to have an exclusive upbringing and sent him to an ordinary school where he had the opportunity to mix with rural children of all classes. Later her was sent to Calcutta to finish his schooling. He finished his matriculation at the age of sixteen , won a scholarship and joined St. Xavier’s College.

After his graduation, like all ambitious young men of his time, he expressed his desire to travel to England and try for the Indian Civil Services. His father did not want him to be an administrator, so he declined. Jagadis began to study medicine but ill-health compelled him to switch over to the less strenuous natural sciences. Later, in Cambridge, he came into contact with the renowned scientist Lord Rayleigh.

On his return, he was appointed as a professor at the Presidency College, but when he realised that he was getting only two-third of the salary of an European, he went without pay for three years till he was given his due.

He began his research in his mid-thirties. It was not an easy decision as there were hardly any experimental facilities. He decided to fashion his own apparatus, thus becoming the first Indian experimental scientist of the modern age. Bose worked on new and tantalizing subject of electric radiation. This was before the days of radio and television, when it was not known how messages could be sent through space. There were other scientists working on the same subject in European countries, but their apparatus were rather crude. Bose invented a small and compact instrument capable of producing even smaller wavelengths. It was so handy that he could carry it around giving demonstrations in his lectures. He showed how electrical waves could penetrate solid subjects and how wires were not necessary to send signals. Bose’s results, published by the Royal Society impressed the scientific community and London University honoured him with a doctorate.

Meanwhile, other European scientists were also working on wireless transmission and G M Marconi in Italy was the first to patent it. The commercial possibility of his work was pointed out to Bose but he was reluctant to make any money out of his discovery

From physics he gradually drifted towards biology. He made experiments showing the similarity of responses in organic and living matter and came to the conclusion that the line between physical and physiological is a very thin one. His findings won admiration all over the scientific world, except from physiologists. He made more experiments supporting his theory. Gradually Bose switched his entire interest to the analysis of plant responses.

J C Bose’s earlier work on electromagnetic waves won him unqualified praise from all quarteres. But his work on plant responses evoked a mixed reaction. This did not stop him. He continued working for 20 more years before his results were accepted by the Royal Society.

Bose retired in 1913 and started another phase in his career. All his life he has been dreaming about building an Indian institute on the lines of the Royal Institution of England with research laboratories comparable to the best in the West. He has been saving money all his life just for this. With a plot of land granted by the government, he started the institute in 1917. Today the institute is named after him (Bose Institute).

Jagadis Bose was, in many ways, much ahead of his time. He discovered microwaves, the implications of which came into light only later. In 1885, he foresaw the possibility of harnessing solar energy by photosynthesis. His physical model as a mechanism for storing information has been recognised as a precursor to the modern discipline of cybernetics.