C. V. Raman

………………………………….. Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888 in Tiruvanaikkaval, Tamilnadu. He acquired his Bachelor’s degree from Presidency Collage , University of Madras and his first paper in the Philosophical Magazine at the age of 18. Despite passing of MA in 1907 with flying colours, he could not study further in England due to his health problem. For this reason to unable to travel to England he dropped the idea of Indian Civil Service exam and passed the Financial Civil Services exam. During his 10 years in the Indian Finance Department, he continued his research and published about 30 papers.
In 1917, he took voluntary retirement from service for Palit Chair in Physics in Calcutta University offered to him by Sir Ashutosh Mukherji. Raman had a special interest in the optics of colloids and the physiology of human vision. He studied the structure and optical behavior of iridescent substances like agate, opal, and pearls. In 1930 he won the Novel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the ‘Raman Effect’. He accepted the post of director at the Indian Institute of Science , Bangalore after staying 15 years owing to personal difference with Meghnad Saha. Raman was the founder of of Indian Academy of Science (1935) and the Raman Research Institute (1947).