Person: Bose, Satyendranath
Satyendranath Bose was an Indian mathematician who did important work in statistical mechanics.
Mathematical Profile (Excerpt):
- Satyendranath began his education at an elementary school in Calcutta before entering the Hindu School in 1907.
- Had Indians been allowed to take administrative posts in the government service, Bose would almost certainly have followed that route.
- This university was a research institution for postgraduate studies and here Bose was able to study recent European texts on quantum theory and relativity which, before the opening of the new institution, had not been readily available in India.
- Gibbs book on statistical mechanics stimulated Bose's interest in this topic.
- Bose was appointed as a Reader in physics at the University of Dacca in 1921 and taught there until 1945, being a professor and head of the physics department from 1927.
- Bose sent his paper Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta (1924) to Einstein.
- Bose was able to derive the formula for radiation from Boltzmann's statistics.
- The paper, and his method of deriving Planck's radiation formula, was enthusiastically endorsed by Einstein who saw at once that Bose had removed a major objection against light quanta.
- Einstein extended Bose's treatment to material particles whose number is conserved and published several papers on this extension.
- An important consequence of Einstein's response to Bose's article was that his application to the University of Dacca for two years research leave beginning in 1924 was approved.
- In October 1925 Bose travelled from Paris to Berlin where he met Einstein.
- Much progress had been made by Einstein following his receipt of Bose's paper for he was able to see how the ideas could be taken forward.
- While he was in Berlin Bose attended a course on quantum theory given by Born.
- Bose published on statistical mechanics leading to the Einstein-Bose statistics.
- It was not only for his research contributions that Bose is important, however, for his efforts to improve education in India led to a much greater use of technology.
- After Bose retired from Calcutta University in 1956 he was appointed as vice-chancellor of Viswa-Bharati University, Santiniketan.
- Bose's shock of white hair and friendly personality was probably last in evidence ant a public function in January of this year, when an international symposium on statistical physics was held in Calcutta.
- Special references were made to his famous paper, and Bose himself also addressed the meeting, asking his colleagues to keep afresh "that wonderful spark" which gave fulfilment to scientific work.
Born 1 January 1894, Calcutta, (now Kolkata) India. Died 4 February 1974, Calcutta, (now Kolkata) India.
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Tags relevant for this person:
Origin India, Physics
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References
Adapted from other CC BY-SA 4.0 Sources:
- O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
