National Science Day – February 28, 2025

History of National Science Day

Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, more commonly known as C.V. Raman was a gifted child. He finished school very early, completing his secondary education at 11 and his higher secondary education at 13, later receiving his bachelor’s degree at 16. While he’d studied physics — passing with honors — he took up accounting as a ‘safe choice,’ only quitting when he was finally offered a teaching position at a college in Calcutta (now Kolkata), in India, in 1917.

Four years later, on a trip to Europe, Raman first noticed the striking blue color of icebergs and the Mediterranean Sea. He couldn’t figure out how this color appeared and set out to disprove the prevailing theory of the time, which alleged that the sunlight scattered upon entering Earth’s atmosphere, causing different colors to appear.

Raman began conducting experiments by himself, later assigning research responsibilities to his student, K.S. Krishnan. They discovered that when light passes through a transparent material, some light emerges scattering in different directions.

These results, published in 1928, took the scientific community by storm, so much so that Raman fully expected to be awarded the Nobel Prize in the same year. He was overlooked that year and the following year. However, Raman’s confidence in his discovery did not waver and he was so sure of himself that he booked two tickets — one for himself and one for his wife — on a steamship to Stockholm in July when the announcement of the Nobel Prize would be in November. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics that year, drawing attention to his work and the Indian scientific community.