Hundred years ago, Satyendra Nath Bose changed physics forever Premium
The Hindu
Satyendra Nath Bose revolutionized physics with his discovery of a quantum statistics to describe photons, paving the way for modern quantum theory.
Satyendra Nath Bose appeared on the physics scene like a comet.
The year was 1924. Physics was in the middle of the biggest upheaval in its history. The old foundations had crumbled in the face of new data. The picture of a new ‘quantum theory’ was emerging. But it was a fractured, disjointed picture with major pieces missing.
The search was on among physicists to find the pieces and complete the jigsaw. In the best universities of Europe, new ideas were being proposed, debated, and discarded every week. Then a lecturer of physics from Dhaka University — located then in the backwater of backwaters — appeared out of nowhere with a major missing piece of the puzzle.
The lecturer, Satyendra Nath Bose, had discovered the correct set of equations to use to work out the behaviour of collections of photons (particles of light). As physics work goes, Bose’s was as fundamental as it got. The physicist and writer Abraham Pais listed it as one of the six foundational papers of quantum theory. Few would disagree.
Even so, a paper from an unknown Indian scientist was initially rejected by a journal. Bose then mailed the paper to his favourite physicist, Albert Einstein, hoping to secure the giant’s support. Einstein loved the paper, translated it to German, and sent it to a journal himself.
This year marks 100 years of Bose’s discovery.
Bose was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in 1894. His mathematical prowess had been noted by his teachers early on. After completing his schooling, he joined Presidency College to study physics. This is where he met and befriended another brilliant young man, Meghnad Saha. The two would remain lifelong friends.
