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Debendra Mohan Bose | |
|---|---|
 Debendra Mohan Bose (standing, third from left) with other scientists of Calcutta University | |
| Born | (1885-11-26)26 November 1885 |
| Died | 2 June 1975(1975-06-02) (aged 89) Calcutta, West Bengal, India |
| Alma mater | University of Calcutta University of Berlin |
| Spouse | Nalini Sircar (1919–1975) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Particle physics Nuclear physics Radiochemistry |
| Institutions | University of Calcutta Cavendish Laboratory University of Berlin Bose Institute |
| Doctoral advisor | Erich Regener |
| Other academic advisors | Jagadish Chandra Bose J. J. Thomson |
Debendra Mohan Bose (D. M. Bose) (26 November 1885 – 2 June 1975) was an Indian physicist who made contributions in the field ofcosmic rays,artificial radioactivity andneutron physics.[1] He was the first to discovermesons withBibha Chowdhuri and was the longest serving Director (1938–1967) ofBose Institute.[2] Bose was the nephew of the famous physicistJagadish Chandra Bose, who laid the foundations of modern science inIndia.
Debendra Mohan Bose was born in Calcutta (present day Kolkata) in a famousBrahmo family. He was the youngest son of Mohini Mohan Bose, one of the first Indians to proceed to USA to qualify himself in field ofhomeopathy.Ananda Mohan Bose was his paternal uncle, whileJagadish Chandra Bose was his maternal uncle.[3] After his father's untimely death, Debendra's education was supervised by his uncleJ. C. Bose.
Debendra's plan of getting a degree in engineering from theBengal Engineering College, Shibpur was cut short when he suffered a severemalaria attack. Nobel laureateRabindranath Tagore, a close friend ofJ. C. Bose, suggested him to pursue physics instead. In 1906, Debendra Bose obtained hisMaster of Arts degree from theUniversity of Calcutta in first class. He stood first in the order of the merit in the examination. He also obtained hisBachelor of Arts degree from Calcutta University. He worked as a research scholar underJagadish Chandra Bose for one year, during which he participated in his uncle's biophysical andplant physiological investigations.[3]
In 1907, he joined theChrist's College, Cambridge, and worked with prominent physicists includingJ. J. Thomson andCharles Thomson Rees Wilson at theCavendish Laboratory. In 1910, he joined theRoyal College of Science in London, from where he obtained a diploma and aBSc (first class) in Physics in 1912. Later, he returned to Calcutta and taught physics in theCity College, Kolkata in 1913.
In 1914, D M Bose was appointed theRashbehary Ghosh Professor of Physics in the newly founded Calcutta University College of Science. He was awarded theGhosh Travel Fellowship for studying abroad, and chose to study advanced physics for two years at theHumboldt University in Berlin. In Berlin, Debendra was assigned to ProfessorErich Regener's laboratory. His stay in Germany got extended to five years due toWorld War I. During this period, he worked on the development of a new type ofcloud chamber, and was successful in photographing the tracks of recoil protons produced during the passage of fast movingalpha particles in the chamber. The results of his preliminary investigations were published in the journalPhysikalische Zeitschrift in 1916 (a full paper was later published inZeitschrift für Physik in 1922). He returned to India in March 1919 after obtaining his PhD.
In July 1919, D. M. Bose re-joined the Calcutta University as Rashbehary Ghosh Professor of Physics. In 1932, he succeeded ProfessorC. V. Raman as thePalit Professor of Physics. He was one of the only two Indian physicists (the other beingMeghnad Saha) who participated at theComo Conference (11–20 September 1927) held atLake Como in Italy. The conference featured 60 invited participants from 14 countries, including 11 Nobel laureates.[2]
D. M. Bose encouraged several of his junior colleagues at the Calcutta University to pursue research. He gaveSatyendra Nath Bose two books ofMax Planck, Thermodynamik and Warmestrahlung (unavailable in India then). This led toS. N. Bose's interest in Planck's hypothesis and his deduction on a combinatorial basis of Planck's formula in 1925.[2]
In 1938, D. M. Bose became the Director ofBose Institute after the death of the institute's founder J. C. Bose. In 1945, Bose was inducted as a nuclear chemistry expert in the Atomic Energy Committee ofCSIR. The committee later became theAtomic Energy Commission (AEC).[2]
A discussion during the 1938Science Congress Session prompted D. M. Bose and his colleagueBibha Chowdhuri[4] to studycosmic rays usingphotographic plates. Since theparticle accelerators were not available at this time, high-energy subatomic particles were only obtainable from atmospheric cosmic rays.Walther Bothe gave the duo the idea of consideringphotographic emulsion as a continuously active cloud chamber to register and store tracks.
Due to theWorld War II restrictions, full tone photographic plates were not available in India at that time. During 1939–1942, Bose and Choudhuri exposedIlfordhalf-tone photographic plates in the high altitude mountainous regions ofDarjeeling, and observed long curved ionizing tracks that appeared to be different from the tracks of alpha particles or protons. In a series of articles published inNature, they identified a cosmic particle having an average mass close to 200 times the mass of electron.[2] Their research came to an end when Choudhuri left India in 1945 to work withPatrick Blackett in England.
In Europe,Cecil Frank Powell independently used exactly the same method to identify the new particlepi-meson (nowpion), but with improved full-tone photographic emulsion plates. He was awarded theNobel Prize in Physics in 1950 "for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and his discoveries regarding mesons made with this method".[5] Powell acknowledge the method developed by Bose and Choudhuri as the first attempt in this field in his 1959 bookThe Study of Elementary Particles by the Photographic Method.[6]
As director of the Bose Institute, D. M. Bose expanded the activities of the existing departments and also opened the new department of microbiology. He was a dedicated worker of theSadharan Brahmo Samaj and was served several years as its office bearer (President, Secretary & Treasurer). He was the General President of theIndian Science Congress Session in 1953 atLucknow. Bose served as the director of the Bose Institute till 1967, when hisarthritis and other health problems forced him to take retirement. In the later years of his life, he became more interested in philosophy focusing on therelationship between religion and science.[3] He died on the morning of 2 June 1975.
In 1927 at the occasion of the 100th death anniversary of Italian physicistAlessandro Volta, in Como, a conference was organized (as mentioned above). D. M. Bose andM. N. Saha participated. In the late 1980s it was reported that the "wrong" Bose, that is, D. M. Bose attended the meeting. The invitation was supposed to be forS. N. Bose. The historical documents suggest that D. M. Bose was not the "wrong" person, because in those days his national and international status was far better than that of S.N. Bose.[7][8]
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