
Satyendranath Bose, a physicist and an Indian mathematician, was renowned for his association with Albert Einstein in forming a theory concerning the gas-like virtues of electromagnetic radiation. Satyendranath Bose is most celebrated for his research on quantum mechanics and providing the basis for Bose-Einstein statistics in the early 1920s. Satyendranath also worked on the theory of the Bose-Einstein condensate.
Early Life of Satyendranath Bose
Satyendranath Bose, born in
Kolkata, and was the first born child to his parents. He was the son of Surendranath Bose who worked East Indian Railway Company. Bose completed his schooling from the Hindu School and later he graduated from the Presidency College of Kolkata. Bose had remained a brilliant student all through his life and had excelled in every academic examination of his life. During his lifetime he had come in contact with eminent teachers like
Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Roy.
Career of Satyendranath Bose
During the period 1916 to 1921, Bose had remained as a lecturer in the department of Physics in the
University of Calcutta. In the year 1921, he joined the Physics Department of the Dhaka University. In the year 1924, Bose presented a seminal paper on quantum statistics. Initially his paper was not given much importance but when Einstein later realised the importance of his paper he submitted his paper to the prestigious Zeitschrift fr Physik and eventually, Bose got the opportunity to leave India for the first time. Bose returned to Dhaka in 1926 and worked as the Head of the Department of Physics and continued being a professor at the Dhaka University till 1945. During the partition of Bengal, Bose returned to India and had started teaching in the University of Calcutta. He retired in the year 1956.
The main contributions of Satyendranath Bose were his papers on statistical mechanics, the electromagnetic properties of the ionosphere, the theories of X-ray and many more. During his lifetime Bose had met many eminent scientists like Marie Curie, Meghnad Saha and had worked in collaboration with them. Along with Meghnad Saha, Satyendranath Bose worked on the equation of state for real gases.
Personal Life of Satyendranath Bose
Besides physics, Satyendranath Bose had a lot of interest in many other fields like biochemistry and literature. His interest in literature included studies both in English and Bengali. Bose had made adequate research in the fields of zoology, engineering, chemistry, anthropology, geology, and other related subjects. Satyendranath also made adequate contribution in promoting the Bengali Language. Bose wanted to make Bengali a teaching language and had translated a lot of papers of science in to Bengali. Bose was not just a scientist he had multiple talents. He could speak fluently in several foreign languages. Satyendranath Bose was also very fond of playing a musical instrument known as
Esraj.
Awards of Satyendranath Bose
In 1954, Satyendranath Bose was honoured by the
Government of India with the Padma Vibhushan, a prestigious civilian award. Although Satyendranath Bose never received the Nobel Prize in his life time but researches related to his works of the Bose-Einstein condensate and Bose-Einstein statistics received a few Nobel prizes including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. Bose had also been made the General President of Indian Science Congress and in 1958 he was made a fellow of the Royal Society.
Satyendranath Bose died on February 4, 1974. Bose was an eminent scientist of India who had made notable contribution in the field of science throughout his life.
(Last Updated on : 24/06/2011)