Google Celebrates Dr. C V Raman’s Birthday with a Doodle

Search Engine Giant Google is celebrating the Birthday of Noted Indian Physicist and Nobel Laureate, Sir C V Raman with a Doodle on its Homepage and Search Results pages. The Doodle shows a portrait of Dr. C V Raman along with Light Rays emitting from a Source on his right, something whose discovery  Dr. Raman has been credited with.  The Doodle is available only on pages affiliated to Google India. It also appears on the Homepage of Google Chrome Users in India.

Sir C V Raman, Physicist and Nobel Laureate

Sir C V Raman, Physicist and Nobel Laureate from India

Dr. Raman was awarded  Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930 for the discovery that when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman effect.

It is said that he was so confident of winning the prize in 1930 that he booked tickets in July, even though the awards were to be announced in November, and would scan each day’s newspaper for announcement of the prize, tossing it away if it did not carry the news. He did eventually win the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was the first Asian and first non-White to receive any Nobel Prize in Science.

He was born Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman  in  Thiruvanaikaval, Tamil Nadu on November 7, 1888. Later,  he went on to become Professor at University of Calcutta and  Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science Calcutta.  His Research formed one of the most important pillars in establishing Quantum nature of Light.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society early in his career (1924) and knighted in 1929. Next year, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1941 he was awarded the Franklin Medal. In 1954 he was awarded the Bharat Ratna by Government of India.  He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1957. In 1998, the American Chemical Society and Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science recognised Raman’s discovery as an International Historic Chemical Landmark.
India celebrates National Science Day on 28 February of every year to commemorate the discovery of the Raman effect in 1928.

He was the Mentor of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, Father of Indian Space Programme. He also was the paternal uncle of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1983) for his discovery of the Chandrasekhar limit in 1931 and for his subsequent work on the nuclear reactions necessary for stellar evolution.