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Top 10 Sensational Facts Sri Jagadish Chandra Bose

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was an Indian physicist, biophysicist, biologist, and botanist born on November 30, 1858.

Recognised as one of the most prominent first Indian scientists who proved by experimentation that both animals and plants share much in common.

He demonstrated that plants are also sensitive to heat, cold, light, noise and various other external stimuli.

Bose pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, contributed significantly to plant science and laid the foundations of experimental science.

He was also a world leader in telecommunications. He was the founder of modern science in the Indian subcontinent and proved that plants have life.

Bose contrived the crescograph, which could record and observe plants’ minute responses to external stimulants. He used the device to determine environmental effects on vegetation.  

It was capable of magnifying the motion of plant tissues to about 10,000 times their actual size and in doing so, found many similarities between plants and other living organisms.

Keep reading for the top 10 sensational facts about Sri Jagadish Chandra Bose.

1. Sir Bose Proved that Plants Feel Pain and Understand Affection

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Seasons and external stimuli affects plants. The crescograph a Bose invention could measure the effect.

The device for measures the growth of plants. 

By using a series of clockwork gears and a smoked glass plate it records the movement of the tip of a plant (or its roots).

It was able to record at magnifications of up to 10,000 times through the use of two different levers.

One lever records at 100 times magnification while the other lever takes that image and records at another 100 times magnification.

Due to his research, scientists could better understand how to cultivate crops in a more effective way. He encouraged people to take better care of plants.

Bose, in a report, wrote that he believed plants “feel pain and understand affection” just like humans.

2. Jagadish Chandra Bose was Denied Access to Labs Due to his Race鈥�.

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Bose reportedly faced racial discrimination during his time as a Professor of Physics at the University of Calcutta.

At that time, India was under British rule.

Jagadish completed his Tripos in Natural Sciences, Physics, Chemistry and Botany. He also obtained a degree from London University.

He returned to India after four years (1881-1885) equipped with excellent recommendations.

Jagadish met the Viceroy of India Lord Ripon over a job placement.

The Viceroy instructed the Director of Public Education to offer him a Professor鈥檚 position.  The director ignored the order and only complied after much hassle.

Furthermore, Bose was denied access to laboratories due to his race, forcing him to set up his own scientific equipment at his house. 

3.      鈥� His Work was Affected by Racism too

Jagadish Bose was a celebrated plant biologist of the early 20th century.

However, Bose became a scientific pariah later in life.

 Westerners expunged his work on plant biology from history.

In the twenty-first century, Bose’s contributions to plant neurobiology are receiving new appreciation. 

The present contribution examines the motivating factors behind the anti-Bose camp in the United States in the 1920s.

It is argued that hostility to Bose’s ideas during this time was motivated by jealousy of Bose’s international renown and the pervasive racism of the time.

4.  Jagadish Bose was Named a 鈥渇ather of science鈥�

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Bose played a significant role in the development of modern radio and sonic technology.

He invented an early version of wireless telecommunication and was a pioneer in bringing wireless signalling to life.

In 1997, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers named Bose a “father of science”.

In addition,  he got a US patent for inventing a detector for electrical disturbances.

5. Jagadish Bose鈥檚 Interest in Nature was Sparked in Childhood

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Bose’s father had sent him to a vernacular school because he believed it was important to know one’s mother tongue before learning any other language. 

“I listened spellbound to stories of birds, animals, and aquatic creatures. Perhaps these stories created in my mind a keen interest in investigating the workings of nature,” Bose was quoted to have said at a conference in Bikrampur in 1915. 

He was from a poor background, but his father encouraged him to become a scholar.

At the age of 18, Bose went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study natural science, and went on to become the founder of modern science in the Indian subcontinent.

6. Jagadish Bose Wrote the First Bengali Science Fiction

Bose wrote science fiction stories while studying in London.  he is thus known as the father of Bengali science fiction. 

Niruddesher Kahini,  written by Bose in 1896 is considered one of the first works of Bengali science fiction. 

This tale of weather control, one of the first Bengali science fiction works, features getting rid of a cyclone using a little bottle of hair oil (Kuntol Keshori).

Later, he included the story with changes in the collection of essays titled Abyakto (1921) as Palatak Tufan (Runaway Cyclone).

Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay translated both versions of the story  into English.

Niruddesher Kahini has perhaps the first known literary usage of the ‘butterfly effect’ or sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

In other words, the butterfly effect means a small change can result in large differences later.

7. Bose鈥檚 Wife  was a Renown Feminist and Social Worker

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In the 1880s, Abala was denied admission to Calcutta Medical College as female students were not yet accepted in the college.

She went to Madras (now Chennai) in 1882 on a Bengal government scholarship to study medicine but had to give up because of ill health.

In 1887, she married scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose. Apart from working as an educator, Bose was an early feminist.

Writing in the English magazine Modern Review, she argued that women should get a better education, “not because we may make better matches for our girls … not even that the services of the daughter-in-law may be more valuable in the home of her adoption, but because a woman like a man is, first of all, a mind, and only in the second place physical and a body.”

Kamini Roy, a foremost feminist who studied with Abala at Bethune School, picked up feminism from her.

Bose served as Secretary of Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya from 1910 to 1936. The Brahmo Balika Shikshalaya is a girls’ school in Kolkata, West Bengal, India.

8.  Crater On Moon Named After Bose

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An impact crater on the far side of the Moon goes by the name Bose.

The Bose Crater is 91 km in diameter and found near Crater Bhabha and Crater Adler.

 Satellite communication borrowed from Bose’s achievements in the field of wireless telecommunications.

9.  Jagadish Bose was Mentors by Charles Darwins鈥� Son

He set off for England in 1880 to study medicine.

Afflicted by Kala-azar before he left India, he had difficulties continuing the study of medicine and joined Christ鈥檚 College, Cambridge in 1881 under the tutorship of Lord Rayleigh, who was a polymath.

Rayleigh got the Nobel Prize for discovering Argon. He took Jagadish under his wings.

Jagadish also studied under Francis Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, Sir James Dewar and Sydney Vines the great physiologist.

Europe was ahead in scientific studies and research and Cambridge was on the front line.

10. He Founded the Bose Institute

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Inspired by lofty nationalistic ideals, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose the father of modern science in the Indian subcontinent, founded Bose Institute. 

Acharya J C Bose dedicated the Institute to the service of the nation on his sixtieth birthday (November 30’th, 1917).

The institute, Asia’s first modern research centre devoted to interdisciplinary research, was initially dedicated to the study of plants.

It later grew into an interdisciplinary research centre and bears a century-old tradition of research excellence.

As outlined in this article, the scientific contributions of J.C. Bose in both physical and biological sciences are colossal.

Even the most eminent of scientists would find it hard to match his strides, spanning various disciplines.

Remarkably, these were realised under the colonial yoke amidst severe constraints and well-documented instances of racism. 

A well-known name in the industry of botany and biophysics, Bose breathed his last on November 23, 1937.