31 December,2024 07:43 PM IST | Mumbai | Nishant Sahdev
Satyendra Nath Bose
Talking about recent events and the past seems to be part of every culture, and over the last century, science has become a big part of those discussions. This trend played out again during the Christmas holiday. One evening, as we gathered around the dinner table in the Royal society of London, a lively discussion started. While the global buzz around the movie Oppenheimer sparked the conversation, it quickly took an unexpected turn. The word that really lit up the table wasn't "Oppenheimer" - it was "Boson," the particle.
Hearing that word sent me on a journey, thinking about the brilliance of Satyendra Nath Bose, a scientist whose name is forever linked to one of nature's fundamental particles. His legacy seems to be gaining the recognition it has long deserved. Just recently, I listened to a talk by Dr. Eric Cornell, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics. It was impressive to hear him admit, with humility and admiration, that his noble work had already been predicted some 70-75 years ago by Einstein and Bose. Moments like this make me feel an overwhelming sense of pride as an Indian-American.
January 1, 2025, marks the 131st birth anniversary of Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian physicist whose noble contributions to quantum mechanics forever changed our understanding of the universe. His work has become the backbone of all current research in fields ranging from particle physics to astrophysics. Often overshadowed by giants like Albert Einstein, Bose was a visionary who laid the groundwork for pivotal discoveries, including the Bose-Einstein statistics and the Bose-Einstein condensate. These theories are the foundation of many modern advancements in physics and technology, from superconductors to quantum computing.
The Early Spark of Genius
Born on January 1, 1894 in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Satyendra Nath Bose demonstrated prodigious intellectual capabilities from a young age. His education began at the Hindu School, and he later joined Presidency College, the premier institution for higher education in Bengal at the time. It was here that Bose's genius began to shine. He excelled in mathematics and physics, achieving top rankings in his undergraduate and postgraduate studies. One of Bose's defining qualities was his insatiable curiosity. Inspired by the cultural and intellectual milieu of early 20th-century Bengal, he was deeply influenced by both the arts and sciences. While he was an admirer of poets like Rabindranath Tagore, Bose's focus remained on applying scientific knowledge to practical ends, a vision he shared with many of his contemporaries. Bose's early professional life saw him collaborating with Meghnad Saha, another renowned Indian physicist. Together, they translated Einstein's papers into English, making ideas in physics accessible to Indian students. In 1921, Bose took up a position at the University of Dhaka, where his noble work in quantum mechanics began to take shape. While teaching Planck's law of blackbody radiation to his students, Bose identified inconsistencies in the established theories. Dissatisfied with Planck's derivation, Bose developed a new statistical approach to explain the behaviour of photons. This work culminated in his seminal 1924 paper, "Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta," which introduced Bose's method for counting states of indistinguishable particles. It was an innovation that challenged the classical assumptions of physics.
A Letter to Einstein
When British journals rejected his paper, Bose did something extraordinary that's not usually done at that time. On June 4, 1924, he sent his paper directly to Albert Einstein, accompanied by a humble letter. Recognising the value of nature of Bose's work, Einstein not only arranged for its publication in the prestigious Zeitschrift für Physik but also extended Bose's ideas to atoms, predicting what we now know as the Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). This collaboration marked a turning point in physics, introducing a new statistical framework for understanding quantum phenomena.
The concept of the "Boson" particle was born from this work. Named in honor of Bose, bosons are particles that follow Bose-Einstein statistics. Unlike fermions, which adhere to the Pauli exclusion principle, bosons can occupy the same quantum state. This property underpins phenomena such as superfluidity, superconductivity, and the operation of lasers.
Bose's findings that changed history and now shaping future
Although Bose was nominated for the Nobel Prize, he never received it. His work was foundational, but like many scientists from outside the Western world, he struggled for recognition. Despite this, Bose's contributions remain an integral part of physics. His work with Einstein is celebrated as a turning point in quantum theory, and the impact of Bose-Einstein statistics extends beyond physics to fields like cosmology and condensed matter science, but yes now researchers all over the globe are realising their wide contribution.
Bose's legacy lives on in the institutions named in his honor, including the Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences in Kolkata, established by the Indian government in 1986. Today, his name continues to inspire, representing a scientist who broke boundaries and laid the groundwork for discoveries that continue to shape our understanding of the universe.
As we witness modern physics evolving with discoveries like the Higgs boson and advancements in quantum computing, Bose's pioneering work on particle indistinguishability and quantum statistics remains more relevant than ever. His journey is a reminder that brilliance and perseverance can reshape the course of science, even if the recognition comes decades later. Nearly 50 years after his death, Satyendra Nath Bose's contributions are celebrated globally, ensuring that his name endures in the annals of scientific history.
Bose-Einstein statistics fundamentally reshaped the field of quantum mechanics. They provide a statistical description of indistinguishable particles, such as photons and helium-4 atoms, in a system. The discovery of the Bose-Einstein condensate in 1995 by Eric Cornell and Carl Wieman - an achievement that earned them the Nobel Prize - validated Bose's theoretical predictions, showcasing quantum behaviour on a macroscopic scale. The implications of Bose's work extend far beyond theoretical physics. Technologies such as atomic clocks, used in GPS systems, and quantum computers, which promise advanced computation, owe their existence to the principles he helped establish. The laser, an everyday application of quantum mechanics, also relies on Bose-Einstein statistics to generate coherent light.
Looking at the Summaries of Addresses of the Congress President and Presidents of Sections as a Presidential Address by Prof. Bose at Indian Science Congress, 1944:
Excerpt [1] taken from his speech "It is clear that a complete acceptance of all the above conclusions (his work on particles that was not aligning with Planck's work) would mean a complete break with the ancient accepted principles of scientific explanation. Causality and the universal laws are to be thrown simultaneously overboard. These assertions are so revolutionary that, no wonder, they have forced physicists to opposing camps. There are some who look upon causality as an indispensable postulate for all scientific activities. The inability to apply it consistently because of the limitations of the present state of human knowledge would not justify a total denial of its existence."
Prof. Bose always favoured for accepting to break with the ancient principles of scientific explanation and that's the true meaning of science to accept new explanation irrespective to completely rely on old one's and likewise Dr. Chinmoy Bhattacharya, who has proposed Topological theory of quantum gravity [2] and it breaks the old scientific theories of quantum physics and many more researchers are waiting in the lobby to get accepted, these are amenable and scientific community is supposed to accept this soon. So new theories and equations are needed for better research instead of relying on old concepts.
Despite his monumental contributions, Bose remained a humble and dedicated educator. After returning to India, he focused on teaching and inspiring students, emphasizing the importance of independent thinking and innovation. He never sought personal acclaim for his work, a quality that further distinguishes him as a scientist of rare integrity.
As I sat at that dinner table in London, listening to the vibrancy of Bose's name, I felt a big sense of pride and inspiration. Bose's journey from Calcutta to global scientific prominence is not just a story about equations and particles. It's a story about the boundless potential of human curiosity and the universal nature of science - a field that connects people across time and geography. On this New Year's Day, as we celebrate Satyendra Nath Bose's birth anniversary, let us remember his enduring contributions to science and humanity. Let us draw inspiration from his life to pursue knowledge with integrity and to envision a future where the pursuit of truth continues to unite us all.
About Author
Nishant Sahdev is a Theoretical Physicist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA. He's working on Quantum Physics here at UNC and working with mathematical problems related to calculus at Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Munchen, Germany. Nishant is currently focused on developing innovative theories and equations. Nishant did his earlier research at King's College London, England and academic studies at the University of Debrecen, Hungary, and Delhi Technological University, New Delhi, India.
