ANTENTOP- 02- 2003, # 003

Jagadis Chandra Bose

BOSE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Apart from his scientific inventions, Dr. J. C. Bose laid the foundation of Bose Bigyan Mandir, which is popularly known as Bose Research Institute. It was the first laboratory founded and funded fully by an Indian, in India. He spent about Rs. 5,00,000, the entire savings of his lifetime, to build and equip the Institute. He dedicated the Institute to the nation for the progress of science on November 30, 1917, his 60th birth anniversary. While inaugurating the Institute he said, "This is not a laboratory but a temple". Bose knew the importance of a well- equipped research center in India and wanted that every Indian should be full of enthusiasm to put India on the fast track of the scientific world.

His main aim behind the foundation of the Institute was to "wring out from nature some of her most jealously guarded secrets".

Bose worshiped in this Temple for 20 years, till his death. He stuck to the belief derived from his parents :"We should not depend on others to do our work, we ourselves must do our work, but before we can do this we must get over our pride". The Bose Research Institute, the fulfilled dream of Dr. J.C. Bose, is presently working as a full-fledged research center in Calcutta. Much of the original equipments used by Bose during the research work as well as his ashes are enshrined at the Institute.

ON J. C. BOSE

"J. C. Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time... In fact, he had anticipated the existence of P-type and N - type semiconductors."

- Sir Neville Mott
[Noble Laureate, 1977]

"By your discoveries you have greatly furthered the cause of Science. You must try to revive the grand traditions of your race, which bore aloft the torch light of art and science and was the leader of civilization two thousand years ago. We, in France applaud you."

- M. Cornu
[President of the Academy of Science, Paris]

"Simply stated, it is the position of the old Rishis of India, of whom he is increasingly recognized by his countrymen as a renewed type, and whose best teaching was ever open to all willing to accept it."

- Patrick Geddes
[Close friend of J.C. Bose, on Bose's anti-patent position]

J.C. BOSE: CAN WE CALL HIM THE FATHER OF RADIO?

Nearly 100 years after Guglielmo Marconi's first transatlantic wireless communication, a group of scientists of the US-based Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) reported that -"the origin and first major use of the solid state diode detector devices led to the discovery that the first transatlantic wireless signal in Marconi's world famous experiment was received by Marconi using the iron-mercury-iron coherer with a telephone detector invented by Sir J.C.Bose in 1898".

Bose's invention of the "mercury coherer with a telephone" which Marconi used was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, London, on April 27, 1899, over two years before Marconi's first wireless communication on December 12, 1901, from New Foundland, now in Canada.

Investigations by the IEE group show that both Bose and Marconi were in London in 1896-97. The Italian was conducting wireless experiments for the British post office and Bose was on a lecture tour. Both the scientists were interviewed by McClure's Magazine (now defunct) in March 1897.

In the interview, Bose came out with high praise for Marconi, then under attack from established British scientists who doubted his credentials. Marconi never could make it to college because of his poor high school record. Bose also said he was not interested in commercial telegraphy and that others could use his research work

In 1899, Bose unveiled his invention of the mercury coherer with the telephone detector in a paper at the Royal Society.

Brilliant Marconi quickly grasped the commercial importance of Bose's invention and began to explore it secretly. His childhood friend Luigi Solari started experimentally with Bose's invention and presented Marconi with a slightly modified design in the summer of 1901 for use in the upcoming transatlantic experiment.

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