Raman Effect

Do you know why the colour of sea is blue? The scientific explanation for the blue color of sea-water and sky was given by an indian scientist,C V Raman.

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, (7 November 1888 – 21 November 1970) was one of the most prominent Indian scientists in history ,whose ground breaking work in the field of light scattering earned him the 1930 Nobel Prize for Physics.

On a sea voyage to Europe in 1921, Raman curiously noticed the blue color of the glaciers and the Mediterranean. He was passionate to discover the reason for the blue color. Once Raman returned to India, he performed many experiments regarding the scattering of light from water and transparent blocks of ice.

Raman showed that the blue colour of sea is independent of sky reflection as well as absorption, but rathter it is due to the molecular diffraction.

He discovered that, when light traverses a transparent material, some of the deflected light changes in wavelength. This phenomenon is now called Raman scattering and is the result of the Raman effect.

He was the first Indian to receive the Nobel prize in physics for his work on scattering of light and discovery of the Raman effect.

In 1954, he was honoured with the highest civilian award in India, the Bharat Ratna.

Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments. He was the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and the mridangam.