Session W37: The History of Physics in India

The Making of Modern Physics in Colonial India

How did modern physics establish itself in India—a British colony—in the early 20th century? Who were the key actors and why did they develop physics in a colonized country far away from a European metropole? By using the case studies of Jagadish Chandra Bose, Satyendranath Bose and Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, this talk will explore their physics, nationalism and social identity as "well-mannered intelligentsia" who played a key role in the making of modern physics in a country still under colonial domination. Finally, it will be argued how the local and the global were entangled in the worldview of these colonial intellectuals and the correlations between the discontinuous ‘light quantum’ and Indian history that played a key role in the ushering in of modern Indian physics.   

Women and Physical Sciences in India: Bimla Buti and efforts to flourish a physical plasma community in her home country

Bimla Buti is the first Indian woman Physicist Fellow of Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and The Academy of Sciences of the Developing World (TWAS). Her contributions to physical sciences have been celebrated with awards, such as INSA-Vainu Bappu Award, Vikram Sarabhai Award, and Jawarharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lectureship Award. Buti received her scientific recognitions with surprise as, using her own words, “it was almost impossible for me, a woman scientist in a man-dominated field, to get nominated for prestigious awards like the Bhatnagar award” (Buti, 2008, p. 38). The man-dominated field was plasma physics. To Indian physical sciences, besides writing papers and books, she contributed to developing a research program on plasma physics at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) and founded The Plasma Science Society in India. “We managed to establish a very strong group in plasma physics, both theoretical and experimental, at PRL” (Buti, 2008, p. 39). This talk will trace her contributions to physical sciences, struggles to become a female physicist, and efforts to build a career and community in plasma physics, contributing, thus, to the History of Science in India.
  

“The free side of the meter”: Trustworthiness, theft and class identity in reading the domestic electric meter in early twentieth-century Calcutta

Of all the devices used in early electric supply projects in early twentieth century Calcutta, the domestic meter was perhaps the most controversial. Introduced as a reliable billing method to measure consumption by customers connected to the newly introduced electric supply system, the electric meter was also at the centre of cases of “improper use” of electricity supply. The term “improper use” is used broadly here to refer to a variety of consumer practices that the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation believed to be interferences to their property and operations. These included theft of electricity by bypassing or breaking seals on electric meters, or using electricity for purposes other than that for which it was supplied to the customer. This paper examines some of the disputes between customers, and engineers and inspectors of Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation on the deployment and use of electric supply and meters in early twentieth century Calcutta. Following recent works on users and non-users of technologies, and trust and the morality of measurements, this paper examines how electric meters became central to concerns over issues of quantities measures by meters, the class identity of customers, and trust between the supplier, consumers and the electric meter. In doing so, this paper will focus on both the design of measurements instruments, and the agency and discretion of the electrical consumer, thereby providing new perspectives on how consumers, suppliers and electrical measurement technologies interacted during the early days of electricity supply in colonial Calcutta.   

Scientific Creativity in Peripheral Locations: The Madras Triple Helix Model of G.N. Ramachandran

The name of the Indian scientist G. N. Ramachandran is associated forever with the discovery of the structure of Collagen. Present in almost all connective tissues, such as skins, bones or muscles, collagen was the third great discovery in biophysics right after the discovery of alpha helix by Linus Pauling and the DNA double helix by Crick and Watson. Unlike the first two however, this third discovery came from a young peripheral scientist who worked from an obscure newly-founded Department at the University of Madras. The discovery of the triple helix structure in collagen, and the subsequent creation of the Ramachandran Plot, was thus truly a case when a peripheral scientist won the race for discovery against numerous Goliaths in the field. In this presentation, my goal will be to trace the outlines of the reasoning that led Ramachandran from his early X-ray diffraction diagrams to the final triple helix structure and the controversy that created the Ramachandran Plot.