Professor Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, c mid-20th century

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, born 7 November 1888 in the British Raj, died 21 November 1970. Raman was an Indian physicist known for his work on light scattering, and found by using a spectrograph, that when light travels along a transparent surface, the deflected light changes wavelength. This is the Raman effect, the work on which earned Raman the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was the first Asian and non-White individual to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences. Raman was born to Tamil Brahmin parents, completing higher secondary education at 13, and achieving his bachelor's degree from the University of Madras at 16. He obtained his master degree at the age of 19, in 1907. In 1907, he married Lokasundari Ammal as a self-arranged marriage. They had two sons. He then In 1917, he was appointed Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta. Raman founded the Indian Journal of Physics in 1926. He moved to Bangalore in 1933 and became the first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science. He further founded the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1933. Raman was appointed the first National Professor by the newly formed government of India in 1947. Raman founded the Raman Research Institute in 1948, where he worked until his death. In 1970, Raman suffered cardiac arrest, and was moved to hospital where he survived for a few further days before passing age 82. Notably, Max Born, creator of these slides, and Raman had a long-term feud over a theory on lattice dynamics, of which Born's theory was more popular amongst the community. Born commented at one time that Raman most likely saw Born as an 'enemy'. Raman won many awards and accolades in his life, and was knighted in 1930. India also celebrates National Science Day on 28th February to commemorate the discovery of the Raman effect.