There have been very few scientists in the world, or perhaps none except one, who were skilled in both physics and biology and who made major discoveries in their time. But in the late 19th century and early 20th century, there was a scientist in India whose ability was introduced to Jagadish Chandra Bose (Jagadish Chandra Bose Science).
Jagadish Chandra Basu was born on November 30, 1858 in Rarauli village of Mymensingh in British-ruled East Bengal, now in Bangladesh. His father Bhagwan Chandra Basu was a Deputy Magistrate or Assistant Commissioner in several places under British rule and a leader of the Brahmo Samaj. He began his education in a village school established by his father. He then graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta.
He then went to study medicine at the University of London, then went to Cambridge College, where he majored in physics, but due to health reasons he had to leave his studies and became professor of physics at the Presidency College, Calcutta. He did not stop teaching even though he was paid less than English professors.
Although he later began to receive both status and salary equal to that of English professors, by then he had accumulated so much debt that he had to sell some of his ancestral land to repay it. But despite all the difficulties, Basu proved to be a very popular and popular teacher, with many of his promising students earning fame, including the famous physicist Satyendranath Bose.
But Basu’s biggest contribution was to introduce the world to the scientific aspect of Indian culture. He presented the scientific aspect of Vedanta and Upanishads to the world. People like Sister Nivedita, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore were also influenced by it. His book ‘Responses in the Living and Non-Living’ based on Upanishad based science was edited by sister Nivedita.
Basu did extraordinary work on wireless signal transmission technology and was the first to use semiconductors to capture radio messages. It was only through his technology that radio could be developed. Rather than profit commercially from his discoveries, he published them publicly so that other researchers could work on them.
In addition, he invented the crescograph for science and studied the response of plants to various stimuli, proving that plant and animal tissues are very similar. Later he proved through experiments that there is life in trees and plants also. The experiment to prove this was done in the Royal Society and his discovery was appreciated all over the world.
But the contribution of Jagadishchandra Basu is such that it is ignored even today. That was writing science literature. He is also called the father of Bengali scientific literature. His stories proved to connect common people with science. He also founded the Bose Institute for the spread of science education, of which he was the director for 21 years. He died on 23 November 1937 at the age of 78.
