“The true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions we uncover the laws of truth.”: Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose
When we think about different era of revolutions, what are the key inventions that shaped the path which determined the next step of human civilization?
Was it the invention of fire or wheel in primitive age?
Was it the steam engine that entirely changed the course of industrial revolution?
Or should we say electricity?
Or was it simply the idea that we can exchange information in the form of microwave? Am I being too naive if I vote for the last one!
The early days of electricity appear to have overwhelming relations between inventors. At one side scholars were devoted to uncovering the puzzle of electromagnetism on the other hand entrepreneurs were waiting to capitalize on pure science and engineer solutions to problems that didn’t even exist yet. We’ve all heard of the epic battle between Edison and Tesla in Westinghouse at the end of 18th century. But another conflict was brewing at the turn of 19th century, this time between a Bengali polymath and an Italian nobleman, and it would determine who got credit for laying the foundations for the key technology of the 20th century — radio a key to the doorway of unlimited remote information exchange.
It was 1885, a time when British were still ruling the subcontinents and colonization was at its peak all over the world, a 27 year old young man Jagadish Chandra Bose returned to his native motherland from England, where he had been studying natural science at Cambridge. Originally sent there to study medicine, Bose had withdrawn due to ill-health exacerbated by the disagreeable aroma of the dissection rooms. Instead, Bose returned with a collection of degrees in multiple disciplines and a letter of introduction that prompted the Viceroy of India to request an appointment for him at Presidency College in Kolkata (Calcutta). One did not refuse a viceroy’s request, and despite protests by the college administration, Bose was appointed professor of physics.
It was the time when Heinrich Hertz was confirming the existence of electromagnetic waves, postulated by James Clerk Maxwell in the 1860s, unfortunately Maxwell died before he could demonstrate that electricity, magnetism, and light are all one in the same phenomenon, but Hertz and his spark gap transmitters and receivers proved it. Inspired by this work and intrigued by the idea that “Hertzian Waves” and visible light were the same thing, Bose set about exploring this new field.
In 1895 Bose gave his first public demonstration of electromagnetic waves, using them to ring a bell remotely and to explode some gunpowder. In 1896 the Daily Chronicle of England reported: “The inventor (J.C. Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel.” Alexander Popov in Russia was doing similar experiments, but had written in December 1895 that he was still entertaining the hope of remote signaling with radio waves. The first successful wireless signaling experiment by Marconi on Salisbury Plain in England was not until May 1897. The 1895 public demonstration by Bose in Calcutta predates all these experiments. Invited by Lord Rayleigh, in 1897 Bose reported on his microwave (millimeter-wave) experiments to the Royal Institution and other societies in England. The wavelengths he used ranged from 2.5 cm to 5 mm. In his presentation to the Royal Institution in January 1897 Bose speculated on the existence of electromagnetic radiation from the sun, suggesting that either the solar or the terrestrial atmosphere might be responsible for the lack of success so far in detecting such radiation — solar emission was not detected until 1942, and the 1.2 cm atmospheric water vapor absorption line was discovered during experimental radar work in 1944.
Bose’s wireless demonstration was remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, it took place two years before Marconi’s first public demonstrations of wireless telegraphy in England. Where Marconi was keenly interested in commercializing radio, Bose’s interest was purely academic; in fact, Bose flatly refused to patent nearly all of the inventions that would spring from his tiny workshop, on the principle that ideas should be shared freely.
The 1895 demonstration also used microwave signals instead of the low and medium frequency waves that Marconi and others were working with. Bose recognized early on that shorter wavelengths would make it easier to explore the properties of radio waves that were similar to light, like reflection, refraction, and polarization. To do so, he invented almost all the basic components of microwave systems — wave-guides, polariser, horn antennas, dielectric lenses, parabolic reflectors, and attenuators. His spark-gap transmitters were capable of 60GHz operation.
From my little knowledge about Sir JC Bose what I felt about him that he never really went for the glory rather then he was driven by the thirst of knowledge and the simplistic view on life.
“ At that time, sending children to English schools was an aristocratic status symbol. In the vernacular school, to which I was sent, the son of the Muslim attendant of my father sat on my right side, and the son of a fisherman sat on my left. They were my playmates. I listened spellbound to their stories of birds, animals and aquatic creatures. Perhaps these stories created in my mind a keen interest in investigating the workings of Nature. When I returned home from school accompanied by my school fellows, my mother welcomed and fed all of us without discrimination. Although she was an orthodox old-fashioned lady, she never considered herself guilty of impiety by treating these ‘untouchables’ as her own children. It was because of my childhood friendship with them that I could never feel that there were ‘creatures’ who might be labelled ‘low-caste’. I never realized that there existed a ‘problem’ common to the two communities, Hindus and Muslims.” Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose 1915 Bikrampur Conference.
REFERENCES
H. Hertz, Electric Waves. London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1893. (Reprinted by Dover.)
John F. Ramsay, “Microwave Antenna and Waveguide Techniques before 1900,” Proc. IRE., Vol.46, №2
K.L. Smith, “Victorian Microwaves,” Wireless World, September 1979.
Lord Rayleigh, “On the passage of electric waves through tubes, or the vibrations of dielectric cylinders,” Phil. Mag., vol.43, February 1897.
Oliver Lodge, Signalling Across Space Without Wires. Fleet Street, London, U.K.: “The Electrician” Printing & Publishing Company, 1908, 4th Ed.
J.C. Bose, “On the determination of the wavelength of electric radiation by a diffraction grating,” Proc. Roy. Soc., vol. 60.
J.C. Bose, Collected Physical Papers. New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927.
P. Lebedew, “Ueber die Dopplbrechung der Strahlen electrischer Kraft,” Annalen der Physik und Chemie, series 3, vol.56, no.9, pp.1–17, 1895.
Monoranjon Gupta, Jagadis Chandra Bose, A Biography. Bombay, India: Bhavan’s Book University, 1952.
J.C. Bose, “On the Change of Conductivity of Metallic Particles under Cyclic Electromotive Variation,” originally presented to the British Association at Glasgow, September 1901, reproduced in Collected Physical Papers, J.C. Bose, Ed. New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927.
