An Unsung Hero…
Thanks to Mohit who first alerted me to this site maintained by Varun Aggarwal on Sir J C Bose – the unsung hero of Indian Science.
Varun’s site details Sir J C Bose‘s contribution to the field of physics and demonstrates beyond any doubt that he was the inventor of the radio which is mistakenly credited to Marconi (see also this wikipedia entry on Sir J C Bose).
The wikiepdia entry mentions, so spectacular were Bose’s achivements that Neville Francis Mott, Nobel Laureate in 1977 for his own contributions to solid-state electronics, remarked that “J.C. Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time”
I am partly ashamed and partly embarrassed by my own ignorance of Sir Bose’s amazing inventions and discoveries. But I suspect I am part of a large majority of Indians.
Please forward this post to your friends and colleagues -This is the least we can do for this great unsung hero.
Continued below…
Image Courtesy: Setileague.org via Wikipedia
Below are some excerpts from Varun’s site on “Achievements of Sir J. C. Bose in the field of communication“:
Sir J. C. Bose invented the Mercury Coherer (together with the telephone receiver) used by Guglielmo Marconi to receive the radio signal in his first transatlantic radio communication over a distance of 2000 miles from Poldhu, UK to Newfoundland, St. Johns in December 1901.
Guglielmo Marconi was celebrated worldwide for this achievement, but the fact that the receiver was invented by Bose was totally concealed.
In 1895, Sir J. C. Bose gave his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder. He sent an electromagnetic wave across 75 feet passing through walls and body of the Chairman, Lieutenant Governor of Bengal.
Sir J. C. Bose holds the first patent worldwide to invent a solid-state diode detector to detect EM waves. The detector was built using a galena crystal. Have a look at Bose’s patent and wait for an interesting article on the same soon.
Sir J. C. Bose was a pioneer in the field of microwave devices. His contribution remains distinguished in the field and was acknowledged by the likes of Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, etc. Read what people thought about J. C. Bose. Refer to [1,2] to study the work of J. C. Bose in the field of microwave.
On his site, Varun appeals to young engineers to consider doing more research on the missing links regaridng the contribution of Sir J. C. Bose towards the invention of radio.
As he writes, “Though this page would probably have a variety of audience, I believe that every electronics/electrical engineer graduating out of India should know about the distinguished contribution of Sir J. C. Bose to the field of communication. Hopefully, this page will initiate interest in people to study the works of Bose and interesting discussions will ensue”.
Below are some more references for the more curious amongst you (from Varun’s site):
Dr. Probir K. Bondyopadhyay’s paper: “Sir J. C. Bose’s Diode Detector Received Marconi’s First Transatlantic Wireless Signal Of December 1901 (The “Italian Navy Coherer” Scandal Revisited).” [ 3, Proc. IEEE, Vol. 86, No. 1, January 1998.]
V. Aggarwal, “Jagadish Chandra Bose: The Real Inventor of Marconi’s Wireless Detector”, The Ancient Wireless Association Journal, July 2006, Vol. 47/#3, pp. 50-54) LINKS?????
http://www.tuc.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose/bose.html : The Works of Jagadis Chandra Bose: 100 years of MM-wave Research. (Excellent description and photographs of devices built by Bose some 100 years back.)
www.boseinstitute.org/ : The Bose Institute.
http://www.antiquewireless.org/otb/marconi1901.htm and /marconi1901a.htm : Did Marconi Receive Transatlantic Radio Signals in 1901?, Parts 1 & 2. (A fresh look in Marconi’s experiment and an examination of its technicalities.)
Shanthanu, I remember an IEEE article on this almost a decade ago (may be it was Varun’s article). It’s fairly common knowledge that Marconi usurped Bose’s invention, at least in engineering and electronic circuits.
Chandra: Thats interesting. If you have the link to the IEEE article, please can you post it here? Thanks.
Jai Hind, Jai Bharat.
Shantanu,
No history of wireless is complete without Tom Lee (Dr. Thomas Lee is a leading researcher in RF/Microwave circuit design and his books on RF/microwave are text books in grad classes on this topic).
Here is what he says in his book:
Planar microwave engineering
This is link for IEEE Paper:
The Work of Jagadis Chandra Bose: 100 Years of Millimeter-Wave Research
Conclusion of the paper says:
—–
Research into the generation and detection of millimeter
waves and the properties of substances at these wavelengths
was being undertaken in some detail 100 years ago in Calcutta, India, by Bose.
Many of the microwave components familiar today—waveguide, horn antennas, polarizers, dielectric lenses and prisms, and even semiconductor detectors of electromagnetic radiation—were invented and used in the last decade of the 19th century. At about the end of the 19th century, many of the workers in this area simply became interested in other topics. Attention of the wireless experimenters of the time became focused on much longer wavelengths, which eventually, with the help of the then unknown ionosphere, were able to support signaling at very much greater distances.
Although it appears that Bose’s demonstration of remote
wireless signaling has priority over Marconi, that he was the first to use a semiconductor junction to detect radio waves and invent various now commonplace microwave components, outside of India, he is rarely given the deserved recognition.
Further work at millimeter wavelengths was almost nonexis-
tent for nearly 50 years. Bose was at least this much ahead
of his time.
——
JC Bose did some amazing stuff – ahead of his time. No doubt. But it would be foolish of us to constantly parrot our past glory as we often tend to do.
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