D.M. Bose the Indian Who Missed the Nobel

Short Feature MANAS PRATIM DAS

D.M. Bose The Indian Who Missed the Nobel

Initially, Debendra enrolled for a Thomson was his guide. In the same degree in engineering in Sibpore laboratory worked C.T.R. Wilson who Bengal Engineering College but a won the Nobel Prize for developing severe attack of malaria put an end to the cloud chamber that detected sub- his pursuit of engineering. At the atomic particles. suggestion of Rabindranath Tagore, the Now in Regener’s laboratory he Nobel laureate and a close friend of worked on the development of a new Jagadish, Debendra entered the type of Wilson Chamber for recording Presidency College to study Physics. the tracks of ionizing alpha and beta With a first class first he completed his particles from radioactive sources. His MA in Physics in 1906. Later, he went earlier training at the Cavendish to study in London and acquired both laboratory came in handy here. He was B.Sc. and ARCS diploma from the successful in photographing the tracks HIS year we celebrate the 125th University of London. of recoil protons produced during the birth anniversary of a great Returning home, he got an passage of fast moving alpha particles genius who made the country appointment in the City College as a in hydrogen filled chamber. The work proud with his path breaking lecturer. From there he moved to the helped in formulating a scheme for Tscientific work. Debendra Mohan Bose, newly built University College of collisions among such particles. Bose a silent worker and a strikingly Science at Rajabazar accepting the Rash also started photographing the recoil handsome figure, was honoured in Behari Ghosh professorship in 1914. In tracks of delta particles whose India and recognized abroad for the same year he was awarded the discovery was made at that time by pioneering researches in the field of Ghosh Travel Fellowship for studies Bumstead. cosmic rays, artificial radioactivity and abroad and However, he was neutron physics. He is also Debendra chose permitted to submit his remembered as the scientist who more Berlin. findings only after the end than once came close to making major He joined the of the war. The results of his breakthroughs that later won the Nobel laboratory of Prof investigations were Prize. E. Regener. But published in 1916 in the Born on 26 November 1885, Bose’s then the First famous journal Physikalische father was a homeopathic physician. World War broke Zeitschrift. It was only a His uncle, Anand Mohan Bose, was the out and Debendra preliminary account. The first Indian Wrangler in Mathematical was interned in full paper was published in Tripos from Cambridge. Bose was the Germany. It was 1922 in another famous nephew of Acharya Jagadish Chandra an era of great journal Zeitschrift fur Physik. Bose, the first modern scientist of India insights into the Later on scientists in this who lived in the same house with atom. He had field concluded that Debendra’s family. In fact, after the earlier worked at Debendra Mohan had untimely death of his father Debendra the Cavendish actually obtained the first was educated under the supervision of Laboratory where photographic records of Jagadish himself. the great J.J. C. F. Powell artificial disintegration. 42 SCIENCE REPORTER, November 2010 Short Feature

D.M. Bose, Standing Third from Left. J C Bose is in the middle of the front row.

World Wars have been important to Debendra Mohan’s work in a peculiar way. The Second World War broke out in 1939. This time, of course, he was in his own country doing research freely. Between 1939 and 1942 he with Biva Choudhuri exposed a large number of photo plates in the mountainous regions of Darjeeling. The idea was actually given by a famous scientist, Walter Bothe. He had asked Debendra Mohan to consider photographic emulsion as a continuously active cloud chamber where tracks are automatically registered and stored permanently. Debendra Mohan and Biva However, Powell was fields. He succeeded J.C. Bose as Chaudhuri observed a number of long magnanimous in acknowledging the Director of the Bose Institute and was curved ionizing tracks that appeared priority of Bose and Chaudhuri’s work. successful in establishing new branches to be different from those due to alphas In ‘The Study of Elementary Particles of study such as Microbiology in the or protons. In fact, they were looking by the Photographic Method’ he wrote, Institute. He also trained and inspired at the first tracks of meson whose “In 1941, Bose and Choudhuri had a generation of scientists at the Bose discovery was later announced by C.F. pointed it out that it is possible, in Institute. Powell. It happened in the closing year principle, to distinguish between the Due to exposure to several cultural of the war – 1945. Two years later tracks of protons and mesons in an figures during his childhood, Bose Powell announced the existence of two emulsion. The method was based on evinced keen interest in social and kinds of mesons, mu meson and pi the difference for a given value of the cultural matters. He was closely meson. He received Nobel Prize for his residual range, in the momenta of associated with the management of the discovery. particles of different mass. This has the City College and served the In fact, Powell followed the same consequence that the ‘scattering’ of the Viswabharati University as its method of determining the mass of particles will be different; the smaller treasurer. He was one of the editors- mesons that was followed by Bose and its mass, the more the track of a particle in-chief of A Concise History of Science Chaudhuri. However, the duo failed to deviates from a straight line as it in India, a publication of the Indian attain success for a number of reasons. approaches the end of its range. Bose National Science Academy (INSA). One was that Biva Chaudhuri had left and Choudhuri exposed ‘half-tone’ Prof. Bose was in the habit of taking for Blackett’s laboratory in England in plates at mountain altitudes and long walks. But while in Germany he 1945. Secondly, standard emulsions examined the scattering of the resulting started suffering from arthritis. were not available in India and it tracks. They concluded that many of the Gradually this put an end to his walks. proved to be a great stumbling block charged particles arrested in their Eventually failing health forced Bose for the experiment. Powell, on the plates were lighter than protons, their to take retirement from the Institute. other hand, had induced M/s. Ilford mean mass being 200 me … the physical He passed away in the morning hours Limited of England to produce basis of their method was correct, and of 2 June 1975. improved plates and this put him in an their work represents the first approach advantageous position. He went on to to the ‘scattering method’ of win the Nobel Prize for his discovery determining momenta of charged of the development of the particles by observation of their tracks Dr. Manas Pratim Das is a Programme Producer photographic method of studying in emulsion.” with the Science Cell of All India Radio, Kolkata. nuclear processes and for the resulting Bose did not stop at identifying Address: 52/1, Adjacent to Ramkrishna Pathagar, discovery of the pion (pi-meson), a subatomic particles. Like his uncle his Netaji Subhash Road, PO-New Barrackpore, heavy subatomic particle. researches branched out into different Kolkata-700131 SCIENCE REPORTER, November 2010 43