National Science Day 2022

Context:

The National Science Day is celebrated on 28 February each year in India to spread the message about the importance of science in the daily life of the people.

History

In 1986, the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) asked the Government of India to mark February 28 as National Science Day which was accepted by the then government and declared the day as National Science Day in 1986. The first National Science Day was celebrated on February 28, 1987.

National Science Day

National Science Day is celebrated to raise awareness on the importance of science. Educational institutions celebrate National Science Day by organising public speeches, radio, TV, science movies, science exhibitions on themes and concepts, debates, quiz competitions, lectures and science model exhibitions.

About Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:

• Raman was born on 7 november 1888 in Tirucirapalli, Madras Presidency to Tamil Parents.
• He was a child prodigy as he completed his secondary and higher secondary education at the ages of 11 and 13.
• He topped his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Madras with Honours in Physics from Presidency College at the age of 16.
• He published his first research paper at the age of 18 while he still was a graduate student.
• He completed his M.A. degree at the age of 19.
• He joined Indian Financial Service in Calcutta as Assistant Accountant General at the age of 19 as his father wanted him to join Financial Service.
• In Calcutta, he got acquainted with the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), the first research institute in India, which allowed him independent research.
• He married Lokasundari Ammal in 1907.
• In 1917, he got the opportunity to join University of Calcutta  as the Palit Professor of Physics.
• He also became the permanent visiting professor at BHU.
• He was elected as Fellow of the Royal Society in 1924.
• In 1926, he established the Indian Journal of Physics as the first editor.
• On 28 February 1928, Raman led an experiment with K.S. Krishnan, on the scattering of light, when he discovered what is called Raman Effect.
• It gave further proof of the quantum nature of light.
• Raman Spectroscopy a new field was came to be based on this phenomenon after Raman Effect.
• He was the president of the 16th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1929.
• He won the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for his Raman Scattering and for the discovery of Raman Effect.
• In 1933 he left Kolkata to join the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore as its first Indian Director which was started by donations of Maharaja of Mysore, Nizam of Hyderabad and Jamshedji Tata.
• He founded the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934 and started publishing the proceedings of the Academy.
• In 1943, he started a company called Travancore Chemical and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. Which manufactured potassium chlorate for the match industry.
• In 1947, he became the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India.
• He retired from IISc in 1948 and established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore in 1949.
• He was against the control of research programmes by the government such as the establishment of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). 
• He remained hostile of the people associated with these institutions such as Homi Bhabha, S.S.Bhatnagar.
• He died in October 1970 after a Cardiac Arrest.

HONOURS

• India celebrates NATIONAL SCIENCE DAY on 28 February of every year to commemorate the discovery of Raman Effect in 1928.
• He was elected as the Fellow of the Royal Society in 1924.
• He was knighted in 1929 for his discovery of the Raman Effect, becoming Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman.
• In 1930 he won Nobel Prize, in 1941 he was awarded the Franklin Medal.
• He received Bharat Ratna in 1954.
• He received Lenin Peace Prize in 1957.
• He also resigned from the Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1968, the only

What is the Raman Effect?

• Raman is the inelastic scattering of a photon by molecules which are excited to higher vibrational or rotational energy levels. It is also called Raman scattering.
  • In simpler words, it is a change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules.
  • When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam.
  • Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light and its presence is a result of the Raman Effect.
• The Raman effect forms the basis for Raman spectroscopy which is used by chemists and physicists to gain information about materials.
  • Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and electromagnetic radiation.

Raman Spectroscopy:

Raman spectroscopy is a spectroscopic technique based on Raman scattering. When a substance interacts with laser beam, almost all of the light produced is Rayleigh scattered light (elastic process). However, a small percentage (about 0.000001%) of this light is Raman scattered (inelastic process). Raman scattering is a process, where incident light interacts with molecular vibrations in a sample.

• Raman Spectroscopy is a non-destructive chemical analysis technique which provides detailed information about chemical structure, phase and polymorphy, crystallinity and molecular interactions.
• It is based upon the interaction of light with the chemical bonds within a material.
• In this, a molecule scatters incident light from a high intensity laser light source.
• Most of the scattered light is at the same wavelength (or colour) as the laser source and does not provide useful information which is called Rayleigh Scatter.
• However, a small amount of light (typically 0.0000001%) is scattered at different wavelengths (or colours), which depend on the chemical structure of the analyte which is called Raman Scatter.

Source: PIB

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