Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose | Page 3

brought to bear on it.
HIS RESEARCHES ON ELECTRIC WAVES
It was in 1887, some times after Professor J. C. Bose had joined the
Presidency College, Hertz demonstrated, by direct experiment, the
existence of Electric Waves--the properties of which had been
predicted by Clerk Maxwell long before. This great discovery sent a
reverberation through the gallery of the scientific world. And, at once,
the scientists in all countries began to devote their best energies to
explorations in this new Realm of Nature. Young J. C. Bose--who had
drunk deep at the springs of Scientific Knowledge and whose
imagination had been very deeply touched by the scientific activities of
the West and who had in him the burning desire that India should 'enter
the world movement for that advancement of knowledge'--also
followed suit.
DIFFICULTIES OF RESEARCHES

When, however, Prof. J. C. Bose joined the Presidency College, there
was no laboratory worth the name there, nor had he any of 'those
mechanical facilities at his disposal which every prominent European
and American experimental scientist commands'. He had to work under
discouraging difficulties before he could begin his investigations. He
was, however, not a man to quarrel with circumstances. He bravely
accepted them and began to work in his own private laboratory and
with appliances which, in any other country, would be deemed
inadequate. He applied himself closely to the investigation of the
invisible etheric waves and, with the simple means at his command,
accomplished things, which few were able to perform in spite of their
great wealth of external appliances.
As the wave-length of a Hertzian (electric) ray was very large--about 3
metres[8] long--compared with that of visible light, considerable
difficulties were experienced in carrying on experiments with the same.
It was thought, for instance, that very large crystals, much larger than
what occur in nature, would be required to show the polarisation of
electric ray. Prof. Bose who 'combined in him the inventiveness of a
resourceful engineer, with the penetration and imagination of a great
scientist'--designed an instrument which generated very short electric
waves with a length of about 6 millimetres or so. And, by working with
Electric radiations having very short wave-lengths, he succeeded in
demonstrating that the electric waves are polarised by the crystal
Nemalite (which he himself discovered) in the very same way as a
beam of light is polarised by the crystal Tourmaline. He then showed
that a large number of substances, which are opaque to Light (e.g. pitch,
coal-tar etc.) are transparent to Electric Waves. He next determined the
Index of Refraction of various substances for invisible Electric
Radiation and thereby eliminated a great difficulty which had presented
itself in Maxwell's theory as to the relation between the index of
refraction of light and the di-electric constant of insulators. He then
determined the wave length of Electric Radiation as produced by
various oscillators.
HIS EARLY CONTRIBUTIONS AND THEIR APPRECIATIONS

His first contribution was 'On Polarisation of Electric Rays by Double
Refracting Crystals.' It was read at a meeting of the Asiatic Society of
Bengal, held on the 1st May 1895, and was published in the Journal of
the Society in Vol. LXIV,
Part II, page 291. His next contributions
were
'On a new Electro polariscope' and 'On the Double Refraction of the
Electric Ray by a Strained Di-electric.' They appeared, in the
Electrician, the leading journal on Electricity, published in London.
These 'strikingly original researches' won the attention of the scientific
world. Lord Kelvin, the greatest physicist of the age, declared himself
'literally filled with wonder and admiration for so much success in the
novel and difficult problem which he had attacked.' Lord Rayleigh
communicated the results of his remarkable researches to the Royal
Society. And the Royal Society showed its appreciation of the high
scientific value of his investigation, not only, by the publication, with
high tributes, of a paper of his 'On the Determination of the Indices of
Electric Refraction,' in December 1896, and another paper on the
'Determination of the Wave-length of Electric Radiation,' in June 1896,
but also, by the offer, of their own accord, of an appropriation from the
Special Parliamentary Grant made to the Society for the Advancement
of Knowledge, for continuation of his work.
In recognition of the importance of the contribution made by Prof. Bose,
the University of London conferred on him the Degree of Doctor of
Science and the Cambridge University, the degree of M.A., in 1896.
And, to crown all, the Royal Institution of Great Britain--rendered
famous by the labour of Davy and Faraday, of Rayleigh and
Dewar--honoured him by inviting to deliver a 'Friday Evening
Discourse' on his original work. It would not be out of place to observe
that the rare privilege of being invited to deliver a 'Friday Evening
Discourse' is regarded as one of