The Interaction of Matter and Radiation: The Physics of C.V. Raman, S.N. Bose, and M.N. Saha

Three extraordinary physics discoveries were made in colonial India, which did not have any tradition of research in modern physics: Saha ionization equation (1920), Bose statistics (1924), and Raman effect (1928). All three discoverers were founding faculty members of the new small physics department of Calcutta¹ University, which started functioning in 1916. These discoveries were all on the general topic of interaction between matter and radiation. In this Part (Part 1 of a two-article series), I describe the social and intellectual environment in which these discoveries were made. Part 2 will focus on the science involved in these discoveries.