Satyendra Nath Bose is an Indian physicist who collaborated with Albert Einstein on the Bose-Einstein Condensate and is the inventor of the boson, or "God particle."
Who Was Satyendra Nath Bose?
Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian scientist, discovered bosons and collaborated with Albert Einstein to define one of two main types of subatomic particles. To the dismay of the Indian government and people, much of the credit for discovering the boson, or "God particle," was given to British physicist Peter Higgs.
Early Life & Education
Satyendra Nath Bose was born on January 1, 1894, in Calcutta (now Kolkata), West Bengal, India, as the eldest and only male of seven children. Early on, Bose was a genius. He aced the Hindu School's entrance exam, which is one of India's oldest schools, and finished fifth in the order of merit. Following that, Bose joined Presidency College, where he studied alongside renowned scientists Jagadish Chandra Bose and Prafulla Chandra Ray in an intermediate science degree.
Bose graduated from Presidency College with a Bachelor of Science in combined mathematics in 1913 and a Master of Science in the same subject from Calcutta University in 1915. He received such high marks on the tests for each degree that he not only finished first but also set a new record for the latter in the University of Calcutta's annals, which has yet to be surpassed. Meghnad Saha, a fellow student who would eventually work with Bose, came in second.
Bose married Usha Devi at the age of 20 while pursuing his two degrees. In 1916, Bose began his studies on the theory of relativity as a research researcher at the University of Calcutta, where he had completed his master's degree. In addition, he established new departments and laboratories to offer undergraduate and graduate courses.
Research & Teaching Career
Bose worked as a lecturer in the physics department at the University of Calcutta while studying. In 1919, he and Saha published the first English-language book based on translations of Albert Einstein's original special and general relativity papers from German and French. For several years after that, the pair continued to present papers on theoretical physics and pure mathematics.
In 1921, Bose joined the newly founded physics department at the University of Dhaka and went on to found new departments, labs, and libraries where he could teach advanced courses. In 1924, he published a paper in which he deduced Planck's quantum radiation equation without using classical physics, which he accomplished by counting states with equal attributes. The study would go on to be pivotal in the development of the area of quantum statistics. Bose sent the manuscript to Einstein in Germany, who recognized its relevance and translated it into German before submitting it to the prominent scientific journal Zeitschrift für Physik on Bose's behalf. Following the publication, Bose was granted a two-year leave of absence to work in Europe at X-ray and crystallography laboratories, where he collaborated with Einstein and Marie Curie, among others.
Einstein had taken Bose's idea and applied it to atoms, predicting the formation of the Bose-Einstein Condensate, a dense concentration of bosons—particles with integer spin named after Bose.
Bose returned to the University of Dhaka in 1926 after his time in Europe. Despite the fact that he lacked a Ph.D., Einstein proposed that Bose be made a professor, and he was appointed head of the physics department. Bose, on the other hand, did not publish for a long time after his return. Bose's interests meandered into other subjects, including philosophy, literature, and the Indian independence struggle, according to a July 2012 New York Times story describing him as the "Father of the 'God Particle.'" He published another physics paper in 1937 and worked on unified field theories in the early 1950s.
Bose returned to Calcutta in 1945 after 25 years in Dhaka, where he continued to research and teach until his death in 1974.
Honors
Several Nobel Prizes have been granted for work on the boson and the Bose-Einstein Condensate ideas. Physicist Jayant Narlikar named Bose's discovery as one of the top ten achievements of 20th-century Indian science. Bose's work on particle statistics clarified the behavior of photons and "opened the door to new ideas on statistics of Microsystems that obey the rules of quantum theory," according to physicist Jayant Narlikar.
When asked how he felt about the Nobel Prize snub, Bose simply said, "I have gotten all the praise I deserve."
Bose was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India's second-highest civilian award, by the Indian government in 1954. He was named National Professor five years later, the highest award bestowed on a scholar in the country. For the next 15 years, Bose remained in that role. Bose also served as president of the Indian Physical Society and the National Institute of Science, as well as an adviser to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. He was elected president of the Indian Statistical Institute and general president of the Indian Science Congress. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1958.
The S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences was established in Salt Lake, Calcutta, some 12 years after Bose's death.
Regardless of the awards and recognition granted by his own country, Bose was largely ignored by the world community as a scientist who produced a significant discovery. People credited British physicist Peter Higgs and the Higgs boson particle when they praised international cooperation that resulted in a breakthrough in recognizing the presence of the boson particle in the summer of 2012.
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