The essence of science is independent thinking, hard work, and not equipment. When I got my Nobel Prize, I had spent hardly 200 rupees on my equipment.
A voyage to Europe in the summer of 1921 gave me the first opportunity of observing the wonderful blue opalescence of the Mediterranean Sea. It seemed not unlikely that the phenomenon owed its origin to the scattering of sunlight by the molecules of the water.
We need a spirit of victory, a spirit that will carry us to our rightful place under the sun, a spirit which can recognize that we, as inheritors of a proud civilization, are entitled to our rightful place on this planet. If that indomitable spirit were to arise, nothing can hold us from achieving our rightful destiny.
We must teach science in the mother tongue. Otherwise, science will become a highbrow activity. It will not be an activity in which all people can participate.
We have, I think, developed an inferiority complex. I think what is needed in India today is the destruction of that defeatist spirit.
It is generally believed that it is the students who derive benefit by working under the guidance of a professor. In reality, the professor benefits equally by his association with gifted students working under him.
It was the late Dr. Mahendra Lal Sircar who, by founding the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, made it possible for the scientific aspirations of my early years to continue burning brightly.
I would like to tell the young men and women before me not to lose hope and courage. Success can only come to you by courageous devotion to the task lying in front of you.
It will soon be 25 years from the date of publication of my first research work. That the scientific aspirations kindled by that early work did not suffer extinction has been due entirely to the opportunities provided for me by the great city of Calcutta.
Towards the end of February 1928, I took the decision of using brilliant monochromatic illumination obtained by the aid of the commercially available mercury arcs sealed in quartz tubes.
The whole edifice of modern physics is built up on the fundamental hypothesis of the atomic or molecular constitution of matter.
It was my great good fortune, while I was still a student at college, to have possessed a copy of an English translation of his great work 'The Sensations of Tone.' As is well known, this was one of Helmholtz's masterpieces.
I feel it is unnatural and immoral to try to teach science to children in a foreign language They will know facts, but they will miss the spirit.
When we consider the fact that nearly three-quarters of the surface of the globe is covered by oceanic water, we begin to realise that the molecular scattering of light in liquids may possess an astronomical significance, in fact contribute in an important degree to the observed albedo of the earth.
The fundamental importance of the subject of molecular diffraction came first to be recognized through the theoretical work of the late Lord Rayleigh on the blue light of the sky, which he showed to be the result of the scattering of sunlight by the gases of the atmosphere.
It seemed, indeed, that the study of light-scattering might carry one into the deepest problems of physics and chemistry, and it was this belief which led to the subject becoming the main theme of our activities at Calcutta from that time onwards.
I have always thought it a great privilege to have as my colleague in the Palit Chair of Chemistry such a distinguished pioneer in scientific research and education in Bengal as Sir Prafulla Ray. It has been invariably my experience that I could count on his cooperation and sympathy in every matter concerning my scientific work.
Is there any more encouraging sign than to see an Indian, who has never been to a university, like our friend Mr. Asutosh Dey here, for example, carrying out original work and finding it recognized by the foremost societies of the world?
From Calcutta has gone forth a living stream of knowledge in many branches of study. It is inspiring to think of the long succession of scholars, both Indian and European, who have lived in this city, made it their own, and given it of their best.
In the history of science, we often find that the study of some natural phenomenon has been the starting point in the development of a new branch of knowledge.
