Remembering Sir. J.C. Bose
Submitted by Mr. S.S. Vasan (February 1998)
This year we are celebrating the golden jubilee of the invention of
transistor. But do you know that, the year 1998, is also a centenary
year of another great invention of this century, not only of this
century, but also one of the greatest inventions made in the history of
human civilisation? But unfortunately, that great inventor didn't
get the recognition he deserved. The name of that great scientist was
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose, a name every Indian should boast of
and the invention was Radio wave communication. Sir Bose, today is
internationally famous as the father of modern plant biology. So, it is,
by far, an exceptional case, that a single person is creating landmarks
in two apparently non-correlated fields, and the man who can perform this
miracle, is a genius indeed.
In his short story, entitled, "The Exile", celebrity author Leo
Tolstoy made a comment, "God sees the truth, but waits..". That's what
exactly happened in case of Sir J.C. Bose. In the '90s of the 19th
century, Sir. J.C. Bose, who was then a professor of Physics Department
in the Presidency College, Calcutta, an institution with golden heritage,
started his research work in solid-state physics and its applications in
microwave, which was a very new concept those days. He invented a method to
transmit and receive 5 millimeter waves. In the year 1899, he came out with
solid state diode. Further, he made a device called "Coherer" which could
transmit and receive radio waves, which used a mercury tube and telephone.
He gave a demonstration of this device in front of the then Governor. But,
unfortunately, the world knew Marconi as the inventor of Radio waves for 100
years. It was a long history of deceit and dishonesty which Sir Bose became
the victim of. During the early 1899, Italian experimentalist Gulielmo
Marconi secretly started his experiments to establish the Radio communication
between Europe and America. Thereafter, he began to carry out intense studies
about the radio wave detectors devised by Sir Bose, during late 1900 and
early 1901. One of Marconi's close friends, Luigi Solari, who was working as
a lieutenant in the Italian Navy at that time, drew Marconi's attentions to
the devices invented by Sir Jagadish. Solari made minor changes in that
device, e.g., he changed that U -tube to a straight tube and made a device
which was just a replica of the Bose's instrument and presented it to Marconi.
Marconi applied for a patent on that device on the 9th September, 1901. While
Marconi and Solari were involved in these experiments, another naval
technician Paolo Castelli also proceeded along the same way shown by Sir Bose.
In 1901, Marconi sent the Morse code "S" from Poldhu, UK to St. Johns, the
then capital of New Foundland, which was on the east coast of Canada. There
was only one witness of this incident, Mr. Cemp who received the signal. He
didn't even record the dot-dash diagram of the common Morse code which could
easily have been taken using a relay in tandem with the coherer. Marconi was
felicitated in USA and in his country for sending the radio signal across the
Atlantic but never ever mentioned anything about Sir Bose. In several
writings, Marconi admitted that he had no education or qualification about
radio waves, and it's true indeed. Because, at the age of 22, it's not
possible without any university education, which he didn't have.
After Marconi delivered the presentation on his works, people from different
parts of the world and from Italy as well, started to raise doubts regarding
the mechanism of the coherer device used by Marconi. Finally he was told to
deliver a lecture on his invention in The Royal Institution, London on the
13th June, 1902. Now the time came for Marconi to answer to that most
important question, "Who is the inventor of the coherer that uses mercury?"
He was shrewd enough to find out some mean tactics to create even more
confusion and to keep the works of Sir Bose unveiled. He told the august
audience in Royal Institution that he designed a number of coherers and one
of them used mercury, which was in no way coherent with his speech made in
New York in front of AIEEE personnel where he had mentioned that he only
invented one coherer. Gradually, he began to shift towards "mercury coherer"
from "iron coherer", i.e., Bose's coherer, but never made any reference to Sir
Bose. After 25 years of this incident Mr. Vivian, who was an assistant to
Marconi, wrote the biography of Marconi where he clearly mentioned that it
was nothing but the " mercury coherer" that Marconi used.
In one interview with Mr. H.J.W. Dam for the "McClure" magazine, in
response to the question, "What is the difference between these electrical
waves, that can penetrate through mountains, buildings etc., and Hertz
waves?", Marconi could only utter, " I can't say that, since I'm not a
scientist. In fact, I doubt whether any scientist knows it at all. But I
can have a faint guess, that it may have something to do with waves...."
Actually, the main difference between them is the penetration power. Hertz
waves can't propagate through water, but other radiomagnetic waves can. What
an irony of fate, the person who doesn't know anything about the radio wave,
its origin, characteristics and never mentioned anything about microwaves or
radiowaves in any of his interviews or lectures, was awarded with the Noble
prize and acclaimed as the father of solid state and microwaves. But the
person, who actually explained these two features and after a prolonged
research, could transmit and receive the millimeter waves, devised the
instrument from which the microwaves generated and transmitted for the first
time, remained overshadowed in the history of science, left out as one of
those unsung men deprived of all accolades.
But, truth can never be concealed. After the untiring efforts of
many years, some Indian scientists throughout the globe, recently have come
out with original facts. IEEE also has accepted these things and declared
this phenomenon as one of the greatest blunders in the history of scientific
inventions. They are coming out with a detailed report on it in the January
issue of their monthly journal. Not only radiowaves, there are many other
fields that Sir Bose explored through. He was a man of exceptional qualities,
a versatile genius in true sense. Some of his works include, Galena detector
for detecting infrared waves, Horn aerial, which is the ancestor of the
modern-day parabolic dish aerials, diffraction grating device to measure the
wave length of radiowaves and many more. But in most of the cases, shamefully
western scientists took the credit. But now IEEE has accepted each of his
inventions. During, his lifetime, he was not at all aware of all the dark
games being played against him behind the screen. His view was ," It is the
invention which is of importance for the mankind, not the inventor". Can you
find any peer of such a noble man? It's our great pride that such a great
scholar was born in our country.
