Days after celebrating “human computer” Sakuntala Devi’s birth anniversary with a doodle; search-engine major Google on Thursday is at it again. This time it is another Indian genius Sir C.V. Raman.

Today's doodle celebrates the 125th birth anniversary of the scientist with an illustration of the Raman Effect. While Raman’s face is featured behind Google’s G, the two Os that follow demonstrate the Raman Effect, a discovery that saw him win a Nobel Prize in 1930.

Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the Raman Effect as:  When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam. Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman Effect.

Born in Tiruchirapalli, then called Trichinopoly, in Tamil Nadu, Raman got admission in to Kolkata’s Presidency College. He passed his BA examination in first place, winning a gold medal in physics. He went on to clear his MA and then joined the government service.

He followed it up by teaching physics at the University of Calcutta.

Thanks to his work on the Raman Effect, he became the first Asian and first non-white person to receive any Nobel Prize in the sciences.

Raman also worked on the acoustics of musical instruments, as well as on the discovery of quantum photon spin later on.

He died at the age of 82 in Bangalore in 1970.

abhishek.l@thehindu.co.in

sivakumar.pv@thehindu.co.in

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