Banerjee, Somaditya (Author)
This monograph offers a cultural history of the development of physics in India during the first half of the twentieth century, focusing on Indian physicists Satyendranath Bose (1894-1974), Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888-1970) and Meghnad Saha (1893-1956). The analytical category "bhadralok physics" is introduced to explore how it became possible for a highly successful brand of modern science to develop in a country that was still under colonial domination. The term Bhadralok refers to the then emerging group of native intelligentsia, who were identified by academic pursuits and manners. Exploring the forms of life of this social group allows a better understanding of the specific character of Indian modernity that, as exemplified by the work of bhadralok physicists, combined modern science with indigenous knowledge in an original program of scientific research. The three scientists achieved the most significant scientific successes in the new revolutionary field of quantum physics, with such internationally recognized accomplishments as the Saha ionization equation (1921), the famous Bose-Einstein statistics (1924), and the Raman Effect (1928), the latter discovery having led to the first ever Nobel Prize awarded to a scientist from Asia. This book analyzes the responses by Indian scientists to the radical concept of the light quantum, and their further development of this approach outside the purview of European authorities. The outlook of bhadralok physicists is characterized here as "cosmopolitan nationalism," which allows us to analyze how the group pursued modern science in conjunction with, and as an instrument of Indian national liberation.
...More
Article
Somaditya Banerjee;
(2016)
Transnational Quantum: Quantum Physics in India through the Lens of Satyendranath Bose
(/isis/citation/CBB281186488/)
Article
Banerjee, Somaditya;
(2014)
C. V. Raman and Colonial Physics: Acoustics and the Quantum
(/isis/citation/CBB001451249/)
Article
Mallik, D. C. V.;
(2000)
The Raman effect and Krishnan's diary
(/isis/citation/CBB000110220/)
Article
Biswas, Arun Kumar;
(2012)
Raman, Krishnan and IACS Episodes of 1930s
(/isis/citation/CBB001253118/)
Article
Singh, Rajinder;
Riess, Falk;
(2012)
Belated Nobel Prize for Max Born FRS
(/isis/citation/CBB001253119/)
Book
Anderson, Robert S.;
(2010)
Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India
(/isis/citation/CBB001020066/)
Article
Sinha, Jagdish N.;
(2004)
Science and Culture under Colonialism
(/isis/citation/CBB000600486/)
Article
Mukharji, Projit Bihari;
(2014)
Vishalyakarani as Eupatorium ayapana: Retro-botanizing, Embedded Traditions, and Multiple Historicities of Plants in Colonial Bengal, 1890--1940
(/isis/citation/CBB001450394/)
Article
Lin, Zhen-qi;
Zhang, Feng;
Hu, Hua-kai;
(2006)
The Man Who Helped Found Quantum Statistics---S. N. Bose
(/isis/citation/CBB000760571/)
Article
Lunteren, Fran H. van;
Hollestelle, Marijn J.;
(2013)
Paul Ehrenfest and the Dilemmas of Modernity
(/isis/citation/CBB001321213/)
Article
Singh, Rajinder;
(2002)
Sir C. V. Raman and his Contacts with Hungarian Scientists
(/isis/citation/CBB000202710/)
Article
Deepanwita Dasgupta;
(2015)
Stars, Peripheral Scientists, and Equations: The Case of M. N. Saha
(/isis/citation/CBB937857548/)
Chapter
Schaffer, Simon;
(2010)
Exact Sciences and Colonialism: Southern India in 1900
(/isis/citation/CBB001023235/)
Article
Daniela Monaldi;
(2019)
The Statistical Style of Reasoning and the Invention of Bose-Einstein Statistics
(/isis/citation/CBB327349848/)
Article
Kauffman, George B.;
(2003)
Raman: The Man and His Effect---A Diamond Anniversary Retrospect
(/isis/citation/CBB001252536/)
Article
Seth, Suman;
(2008)
Mystik and Technik: Arnold Sommerfeld and Early-Weimar Quantum Theory
(/isis/citation/CBB000930036/)
Article
Sur, Abha;
(2002)
Scientism and Social Justice: Meghnad Saha's Critique of the State of Science in India
(/isis/citation/CBB000340908/)
Article
Singh, Rajinder;
(2002)
C. V. Raman and the Discovery of the Raman Effect
(/isis/citation/CBB000642048/)
Article
Singh, Rajinder;
(2003)
Richard Bär and His Contacts with the Indian Nobel Laureate Sir C. V. Raman
(/isis/citation/CBB000600462/)
Chapter
Sinha, Arvind;
(2010)
Implantation of Commercial Crops: Cochineal Culture and the Regional Ecology in the Eighteenth Century Coromandel
(/isis/citation/CBB001500555/)
Be the first to comment!