This volume contains 55 publications in the field of Acoustics and includes the famous landmark paper On the Mechanical Theory of Vibration of Bowed Strings--perhaps the most important contribution to the theory of violins since Helmholtz, and also the English translation of Raman's celebrated monograph, Musik instrumente und ihre Klange (Musical Instruments and Their Tones) in the Springer Encyclopaedia of Physics. The volume includes six remarkable papers on the acoustics of Indian musical instruments--the mridangam and tabla, the only percussion instruments in the world that produce harmonic vibrations, and the tanpura and veena.
To C.V. Raman color was an obsession. The visual impact that the blue of the Mediterranean had on him culminated in his discovery of the Raman effect. This volume contains 79 papers he published on a variety of topics, 39 of which deal with color in Nature. All the optical phenomena in his repertoire were necessary to explain the flashing rainbow colors of the plumage of birds. 16 papers deal with diamonds: The beauty of their geometric form, and their lustrous curved faces bring out clearly that many specimens exhibit a symmetry lower than the highest in the cubic class. Twenty papers deal with miscellaneous topics in which Raman was interested from time to time. His phenomenological theory of viscosity which was so useful to the polymer chemist, his classic studies of impact between two bodies, and his pioneering work of the mechanism on fracture of solids are all dealt with in this volume.
This contains 94 papers on Scattering of Light. They cover Molecular Scattering, Colloid Scattering, Raman Scattering, Brillouin Scattering and also X-ray and Compton Scattering. This volume also has in it the celebrated monograph Molecular Diffraction of Light (1922), the famous papers on the color of the sea, the first lecture on the Raman Effect, entitled A New Radiation (1928) and the Nobel Lecture delivered at Stockholm in 1930. Many papers are of historical value showing, for example, how Raman blazed new trails by discovering such new phenomena as shear waves in liquids and soft mode processes in crystals. A unique collection of papers by a master, delineating the growth of a fascinating field.
This book highlights the role of Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, founder of the Calcutta school of physics and the Calcutta Mathematical Society, and his talented scholars – Sir C.V. Raman, D.M. Bose, S.N. Bose, M.N. Saha, Sir K.S. Krishnan and S.K. Mitra – all of whom played a significant role in fulfilling their goal of creating an outstanding school of physical sciences in the city of Calcutta. The main objective of the book is to bring to the fore the combined contributions of the greatest physicists of India, who in the colonial period worked with practically no modern amenities and limited financial resources, but nonetheless with total dedication and self-confidence, which is unmatched in today’s world. The book presents the golden age of the physical sciences in India in compact form; in addition, small anecdotes, mostly unknown to many, have been brought the forefront. The book consists of 10 chapters, which include papers by these distinguished scientists along with detailed accounts of their academic lives and main research contributions, particularly during their time in Calcutta. A synopsis of the contents is provided in the introductory chapter. In the following chapters, detailed discussions are presented in straightforward language. The complete bibliographies of the great scientists have been added at the end. This book will be of interest to historians, philosophers of science, linguists, anthropologists, students, research scholars and general readers with a love for the history of science.
