Thread by @somakrc

On the birth anniversary of #JagadisChandraBose, I proudly remember the moment in 2012 when, as the Head of Physics at #PresidencyUniversityKolkata, I received, along with VC Malabika Sarkar, the #IEEE #MilestonePlaque recognising Bose's seminal contribution to microwave research

Dr Peter Staeker, then President-Elect of IEEE, had flown from New York to confer this honour. This was the first #IEEE plaque given to an Indian Institution. Later the same day, a second such milestone plaque was presented to IACS to commemorate the work done by C V Raman there

I am delighted to note that the #IEEE has now announced that the 3rd milestone plaque to be awarded to India would be to the #GMRT #GiantMetrewaveRadioTelescope, built by the late @govindswarup & his colleagues #NCRA-TIFR in #Pune led by @yash_gupta_62. Wish #Swarup were with us!

J C Bose generated the first microwaves in Presidency College (1880s) inventing all the basic equipment we now use to generate/detect them, including the horn antenna. He demonstrated wireless communication at the Kolkata Town Hall & the #RoyalInstitutionLondon before Marconi did

"..For his communication system, Bose pioneered in development of entire millimeter-wave components like a spark transmitter, coherer, dielectric lens, polarizer, horn antenna, and cylindrical diffraction grating...the first millimeter-wave communication system in the world"

Today it is hard to imagine a life without microwaves, with mobile phones, remote controls, wifi and kitchens using them. We owe J C Bose for it all, a man far ahead of his time.
cv.nrao.edu/~demerson/bose…

On graduating from Christ's Cambridge in 1885, JCB was reluctantly accepted by the all-white Physics faculty at Presidency College as "officiating Professor", and offered a third of what a white colleague would earn. In protest, he did not accept any pay for three years

...nor was he given research facilities. He turned a broom cupboard next to the men's lavatory into his laboratory. There he built unique homegrown instruments using twisted jute and a railway timetable interleaved with mica sheets for refraction and polarisation of microwaves.

If you read Bangla, here is an article I wrote on J C Bose and his oustanding contribution in the #AnandaBazarPatrika archives.anandabazar.com/archive/112091…

He was also an outstanding mentor of students- this picture alone has some of the stalwarts of Indian Science of the 20th centure- M N Saha, S N Bose, D M Bose, N R Sen, J C Ghosh, to name a few.