My Authors
Read all threads
#WomenInScience #SheDared

The history of science has often seen the contributions of women being overlooked. This #WomensDay, we are paying a tribute to unsung Indian women who blazed new trails in science.

THREAD: Bibha Chowdhury, India's unsung pioneer in particle physics.
1/ Born in 1913, Bibha was supposedly India's first woman researcher.

Yet, neither does the name of this gifted physicist surface in any book on inspiring Indian women, nor is she mentioned amongst various lists of Indian pioneers in the history of science. #WomensDay
2/ Bibha also did not win any national award or receive a fellowship from a renowned scientific society during her lifetime.

And yet, in 1949, she was handpicked by none other than Homi Bhabha to join the newly established Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai.
3/ The reason, you ask? Because in 1939-40, Bibha had been the first in the world to discover a new sub-atomic particle, the pi-meson (pion).
4/ In an age when accelerators were unknown, Bibha and her mentor, Debendra Mohan Bose, meticulously carried out a series of studies at the high altitudes of Darjeeling and Sandakphu to discover the hitherto hypothetical cosmic ray particle.
5/ Tragically, Bibha and Bose had to give up their experiments due to a lack of high-quality photo plates during World War II.

Seven years later, CF Powell made the same discovery of pions — using the same technique but high quality photo plates —and won the Nobel Prize in 1950
6/ In fact, Powell would go on to acknowledge Bose and Chowdhuri's pioneering contribution in his work.

And yet few Indians know about the pioneering woman, who remained a tireless researcher till she died, unsung and unheralded, in Calcutta in 1991.

It's time this changed.
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Enjoying this thread?

Keep Current with The Better India

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!