K. Krishna Murty 5D Timeless Scientists K. Krishna Murty PUSTAK MAHAL Delhi • Humba i• Patna • Hyderabad • Bangaolre • IcnJon Publishers Pustak Mahal®, Delhi J-3/16 , Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002 h 23276539, 23272783, 23272784 • Fax: 011-23260518 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.pustakmahal.com Lotulon Office 51, Severn Crescents, Slough, Berkshire, SL 38 UU, England E-mail-, [email protected] © Copyright: Pustak Mahal Edition : September, 2008 ISBN 978-81-223-1030-6 The Copyright of !his book, as well as all matter contained herein (including illustrations) rests with the Publishers. No person shall copy the name of the book, its title design, matter and illustrations in any form and in any language, totally or partially or in any distorted form. Anybody doing so shall face legal action and will be responsible for damages. Printed at : Param Oftsetters, Okhla, New Delhi-1 10020 PREFACE Man's ability to think is the motive power behind all human progress. The desire to discover, ability to create, dissatisfaction at the present and the persistence despite failures are the wheels of development. Chance, serendipity, accident, inspiration or emotional experiences all are Nature's ways but for sure it favors a prepared mind! We now enjoy those fruits from the gardens of Arya Bhatta to Amar Bose, from Charles Goodyear to Charles Townes and from Susruta to Subba Rao. The story of science is an exciting drama unfolding comedy and tragedy, success and failure. When the tireless inventive geniuses worked dangerously into the frontiers of unknown knowledge, nature cracked its codes in mysterious ways and the laboratories have crackled some time in wonder, some time in humor and some time in mysticism. Science is habitually associated with cloistered laboratories, with cobwebs and cluttered instruments and scientists with disheveled hair, shabby dress, and papers floating around with esoteric ideas and complicated formulas. Hope was in their dreams with courage making them a pristine reality. "It is courage based on confidence, and it is confidence based on experience." After months of perspiration, technical challenges and personal frustration, when the ideas were perfected into practical shapes, all they received was outrageous ridicule. But can we now survive if any one of those marvels were to be removed from our lives? Nature is an exciting arena and "the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before us." In spite of all the scientific breakthroughs and technological marvels, we continue to be small pebbles on the shores of the vast ocean of knowledge. Haldane's "own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose!" Now we have the stories of over fifty great men who dived deep into those queer depths. Our scientist sages saw the heavens with their naked eyes centuries before it was magnified for the western world. Is there a limit to Chandrasekhar? Our own Benjamin Peary Paul's love for roses raised the curtain for Green Revolution. A British scientist bequeathed his body to an Indian medical college. Here we have scientists who missed Nobel Prize and those whom Nobel missed. A Nobel Prize awarded to Pauling was branded as an insult! But he is the only one to receive two unshared Nobels. Bardeen promised Swedish king that he would return and he did for another Nobel. An agricultural Scientist received a Peace Nobel Prize. Yes! What is peace without food? Barbara Mcclintock refused to publish her papers anguished at the hostile scientific community, but Nobel committee discovered her in 1983. Then we have scientists who received awards in prison cells, scientists who made discoveries in the prison cells. Tesla was thrown out of his own labs, cheated by another great man but his alternating current runs our homes now. Carlson went from pillar to post with his photocopy machine and sooner or later we may have a Xerox of human being. Townes received the revelation for LASER on a park bench. When Maiman made the practical Laser, a Hollywood actress wondered if it is a death Ray. Medicines from Jenner, Pasteur and the like consigned some diseases to history. If only Subba Rao lived a few years more, he would have killed some more diseases. A trio of scientists transformed the twentieth century by inventing the transistor. To top it all, a scientist who was not allowed to go on a holiday invented the microchip. A school teacher testified in the court to save his old student, Fansworth from greedy corporations for his rightful invention, the television. Davy openly accepted his student as his greatest discovery, Michael Faraday indeed! New York Times reversed its ridicule ladled out on a rocket scientist after 40 years only after man landed on the moon. Pauli discovered Neutrinos but could not believe their existence. When proved, he kept his promise of champagne casket. You have them all! It is not a weary chronology of oft repeated Einstein or Newton but a delightful journey into the biographies some of the unsung heroes through their trials and tribulations, eurekas and euphorias, their pleasures and pains, and their dreams and delusions. They educate and entertain you and you are enticed. Come in please! Entry not restricted! Contents 1. Amar Bose (Bose Systems) 9 2. Aryabhatta (Mathematician and Astronomer) 13 3. Barbara Mc Clintock (Genius Genetist) 16 4. Benjamin Peary Paul (Father of Roses) 20 5. Bhaskaracharya (Mathematician and Astrologer) 23 6. C. N. R. Rao (Material Chemist) 27 7. C. R. Rao (Rao Theorems) 31 8. Charles Goodyear (Vulcanisation) 34 9. Charles H. Townes (Laser) 38 10. Charles Kettering (Automobile Inventions) 41 11. Chestor Carlson (Photocopy Machine) 44 12. E. C. G. Sudarshan (Tachyons) 48 13. Edward Jenner (Vaccination) 52 14. Felix Hoffman (Aspirin and Heroin) 55 15. Howard Florey (Production of Penicillin) 58 16. Humphrey Davy (Davy Lamp) 62 17. J. B. S. Haldane (Haldane's Principle) 65 18. Jack Kilby (Integrated Circuit) 69 19. Jayant Vishnu Narlikar (Astrophysicist) 73 20. John Bardeen (Transistor) 76 21. Jonas Salk (Polio vaccine) 80 22. Linus Pauling (Chemical Bond) 84 23. Louis Jean Pasteur (Pasteurisation) 88 24. M. S. Swaminathan (Father of Green Revolution) 92 25. Meghnad Saha (Saha Equation) 97 26. Niels Bohr (Bohr's Model) 100 27. Nikola Tesla (Alternating Current) 104 28. Norman Borlaug (Agricultural Scientist) 108 29. P. C. Mahalanobis (Mahalanobis Distance) 112 30. Philo Farnsworth (Electronic Television) 115 31. Raja Ramanna (Nuclear Physicist) 119 32. Robert H. Goddard (Rocket Pioneer) 123 33. Robert Noyce (Integrated Circuit) 127 34. Ronald Ross (Malaria Cure) 130 35. S. Chandrasekhar (Chandrasekhar Limit) 134 36. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (Magneto Chemistry) 138 37. Sigmund Freud (Father of Psychoanalysis) 142 38. Sushruta (First Cosmetic Surgeon) 145 39. Albert Szent Gyorgyi (Vitamin C) 149 40. Theodore H. Maiman (Practical Laser) 152 41. Tim Berners-Lee (Internet) 156 42. M.K. Vainu Bappu (Astronomer) 159 43. Varahamihira (Mathematician and Astrologer) 162 44. Vikram Sarabhai (Space Scientist) 165 45. Walter Brattain (Transistor) 169 46. Washington Carver (Agriculture Scientist) 173 47. William Shockley (Transistor) 177 48. Wilson Greatbatch (Implantable Heart Pacemaker) . 181 49. Wolfgang Ernst Pauli (Pauli's Principle) 185 50. Yellapragada Subba Rao (Auromycin and Hetrazan).. 188