Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (physicist)

Last updated

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar
Born1 March 1904
Patgram, Dacca district, Bengal Presidency
Died29 December 1995(1995-12-29) (aged 91)
Calcutta
Nationality Indian
Alma mater Calcutta University, University of Jena
Scientific career
Fields Physics
Institutions Bose Institute, Delhi University
Doctoral students Asoke Nath Mitra

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar (1904-1995) was an Indian physicist who made contributions in several branches of theoretical physics, notably statistical mechanics and ionospheric physics. He played a key role in setting up the Department of Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Delhi, which he headed for around nine years, and also was pro-vice-chancellor of the university. [1] He was elected a Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy and was general secretary of the National Academy of Sciences, India.

Contents

Early life

Majumdar was born on 1 March 1904 in Patgram, a village in Dacca district of the Bengal Presidency, now in Bangladesh. His father, Mahesh Chandra Majumdar worked in a tea estate in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal. He had his schooling in Jalpaiguri. After completing his undergraduate studies at Rajshahi College, he went to Calcutta to study for his master's degree in physics.

Majumdar studied physics at Calcutta University in the laboratory of B. B. Ray, where he carried out an experiment that demonstrated the Raman effect in X-rays; this was published in Nature in 1931. [2] After completing his Master's in 1927, he moved to Allahabad University, where he wrote a research paper with Meghnad Saha. For the rest of his career, he concentrated on theoretical physics. With Saha's encouragement, he went abroad for his doctoral studies and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Jena. [3] During this period, he was a frequent visitor to Cambridge University, where his friend and collaborator Daulat Singh Kothari was working for his Ph.D. According to one source, Majumdar went to Cambridge, "arriving — it is said — on the doorstep of Lord Rutherford's home on a Sunday afternoon". [4]

Career

After his return to India, Majumdar taught for a short period at Panjab University in Lahore. He then worked at the Bose Institute in Calcutta, [5] [6] before joining the Physics Department (later renamed Department of Physics and Astrophysics) of the University of Delhi in 1944. Along with Daulat Singh Kothari, who was then head of the department, he played an important role in building up the department by hiring key people to start new research groups. [7] He headed the department from 1948 to 1951. In 1961, when Kothari was appointed chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC), Majumdar again took over as head of the department, and held the position until his appointment as pro-vice-chancellor in 1967. [1] During his tenure as head, the department was recognised as a Centre of Advanced Studies by the UGC. Majumdar held the post of pro-vice-chancellor of the university from 1967 to 1969. Upon his retirement, he was appointed professor emeritus for life.

Both as head and as pro-vice chancellor, Majumdar was responsible for new facilities being set up in the department. [8] He held a visiting assignment at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1948. According to Piara Singh Gill, who held Majumdar in high regard as representing "the best traditions of scholarship", the Tata Institute authorities wanted Majumdar to stay on in Bombay, but he chose to return to Delhi. [6] Majumdar was also a founding member of the Delhi University Teachers' Association. [9]

Honours and awards

Books authored/edited by Ramesh Chandra Majumdar

Legacy

Majumdar's role as an institution-builder is important in the context of physics in India. As mentioned above, he played a major role in building up the Department of Physics and Astrophysics, both by hiring faculty to build up specific research areas and by setting up research facilities. He was also an influential teacher. Many students who attended his classes were inspired to take up research careers. [1] Overall, Majumdar, through his life and work, reinforced the idea that it was possible to do high-quality physics research in a university, as evidenced by his turning down the TIFR offer.[ citation needed ]

Majumdar also started a tradition of organising summer schools on topics of current interest. These were typically directed at Ph.D. students, and held at various hill stations in Northern India.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Satyendra Nath Bose</span> Indian physicist and polymath (1894–1974)

Satyendra Nath Bose was an Indian mathematician and physicist specializing in theoretical physics. He is best known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920s, in developing the foundation for Bose–Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose–Einstein condensate. A Fellow of the Royal Society, he was awarded India's second highest civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan, in 1954 by the Government of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Calcutta</span> Public university in Kolkata, India

The University of Calcutta is a public state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It has 151 affiliated undergraduate colleges and 16 institutes in Kolkata and nearby areas. It was established on 24 January 1857 and is the oldest multidisciplinary university of Indian Subcontinent and South East Asian Region. Today, the university's jurisdiction is limited to a few districts of West Bengal, but at the time of its establishment it had a catchment area ranging from Kabul to Myanmar. Within India, it is recognized as a "Five-Star University" and accredited an "A++" grade by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meghnad Saha</span> Bengali astrophysicist and politician (1893–1956)

Meghnad Saha was an Indian astrophysicist who helped devise the theory of thermal ionisation. His ionisation equation allowed astronomers to accurately relate the spectral classes of stars to their actual temperatures. He was elected to the Parliament of India in 1952.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delhi University</span> Central university in Delhi, India

Delhi University (DU), formally the University of Delhi, is a central university located in Delhi, India. It was founded in 1922 by an Act of the Central Legislative Assembly and is recognized as an Institute of Eminence (IoE) by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The university has 16 faculties and 86 departments distributed across its North and South campuses, and remaining colleges across the region. It has 91 constituent colleges. Delhi University is one of the largest university systems in the world with over 400,000 students on its campuses and affiliated colleges. The Vice President of India serves as the university chancellor. The university is ranked 11th by National Institutional Ranking Framework 2023.

Bengali Brahmos are those who adhere to Brahmoism, the philosophy of Brahmo Samaj which was founded by Raja Rammohan Roy. A recent publication describes the disproportionate influence of Brahmos on India's development post-19th Century as unparalleled in recent times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sisir Kumar Mitra</span> Indian physicist

Sisir Kumar Mitra MBE, FNI, FASB, FIAS, FRS was an Indian physicist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. C. Majumdar</span> Indian historian and academic (1888–1980)

Ramesh Chandra Majumdar was a historian and professor of Indian history. Majumdar is a noted historian of modern India. He was a former Sheriff of Kolkata.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daulat Singh Kothari</span> Indian physicist (1906–1993)

Daulat Singh Kothari was an Indian scientist and educationist.

Prabhu Lal Bhatnagar, commonly addressed as P. L. Bhatnagar, was an Indian mathematician known for his contribution to the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook operator used in Lattice Boltzmann methods (LBM).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piara Singh Gill</span> Indian physicist

Piara Singh Gill was an Indian nuclear physicist and a pioneer in cosmic ray nuclear physics. He was the first Director of Central Scientific Instruments Organisation (CSIO) of India. He was research fellow of University of Chicago (1940). He was research Professorship fellow of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) (1947), Officer-on-Special Duty (OSD) with the Atomic Energy Commission in New Delhi. Professor and head of the Department of Physics at Aligarh University (1949), Director of Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIO) (1959) and Professor Emeritus at Punjab Agricultural University (1971).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Debendra Mohan Bose</span> Indian physicist (1885–1975)

Debendra Mohan Bose was an Indian physicist who made contributions in the field of cosmic rays, artificial radioactivity and neutron physics. He was the longest serving Director (1938–1967) of Bose Institute. Bose was the nephew of the famous physicist Jagadish Chandra Bose, who laid the foundations of modern science in India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amitava Raychaudhuri</span> Indian theoretical particle physicist

Amitava Raychaudhuri is an Indian theoretical particle physicist. He is Professor Emeritus at the Physics Department of the Science College, University of Calcutta where he earlier held the Sir Tarak Nath Palit Chair Professorship. He is the nephew of another renowned Indian physicist, Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asoke Nath Mitra</span> Indian theoretical physicist (born 1929)

Asoke Nath Mitra was an Indian theoretical physicist. He was a lifetime professor emeritus at Delhi University. He is known for his work in nuclear physics, particle physics and quantum field theory and in particular, for his fundamental contributions in obtaining the exact solution of the nucleon 3- body problem with separable potentials which led to the few nucleon studies, quark-recoil effect, development of an integrated dynamics of 2- and 3- body systems from nucleons to quarks as well as for the development of quark dynamics and relativistic quark models for hadrons in the Bethe-Salpeter framework. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize in 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jnan Chandra Ghosh</span>

Sir Jnan Chandra Ghosh or Jnanendra Chandra Ghosh was an Indian chemist best known for his contribution to the development of scientific research, industrial development and technology education in India. He served as the director of the newly formed Eastern Higher Technical Institute in 1950, which was renamed as IIT Kharagpur in 1951. He was also the director of the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Vice Chancellor of the University of Calcutta.

Sampat Kumar Tandon is an Indian geologist and a professor emeritus of geology at the University of Delhi. He is a former pro-vice chancellor of Delhi University, Sir J. C. Bose Chair Professor of the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal and a D. N. Wadia Chair Professor of the department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Virendra Singh is an Indian theoretical physicist and a former C. V. Raman chair professor and director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). Known for his research in high energy physics, Singh is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies - Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Sciences, India as well as The World Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to Physical Sciences in 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chanchal Kumar Majumdar</span> Indian physicist (1938–2000)

Chanchal Kumar Majumdar was an Indian condensed matter physicist and the founder director of S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences. Known for his research in quantum mechanics, Majumdar was an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies – the Indian National Science Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, India, and the Indian Academy of Sciences – as well a member of the New York Academy of Sciences and the American Physical Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University College of Science, Technology and Agriculture</span> Science College, Kolkata, West Bengal

The University College of Science, Technology and Agriculture are two of five main campuses of the University of Calcutta (CU). The college served as the cradle of Indian Sciences by winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930 and many fellowships of the Royal Society London.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Biographical Memoirs: RAMESH CHANDRA MAJUMDAR (1904 - 1995)" (PDF). Indian National Science Academy. Retrieved 11 January 2019.
  2. ↑ Majumdar, R C (17 January 1931). "Part-Absorption Phenomena of X-Rays". Nature. 127 (3194): 92. Bibcode:1931Natur.127...92M. doi: 10.1038/127092a0 . S2CID   4130239.
  3. ↑ Panchapakesan, N. (July 1994). "DS Kothari and Delhi University". Defence Science Journal. 44 (3): 199–202. doi: 10.14429/dsj.44.4169 . Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  4. ↑ Anderson, Robert S. (May 2010). Nucleus and Nation: Scientists, International Networks, and Power in India. University of Chicago Press. p. 44. ISBN   9780226019772 . Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  5. 1 2 "Appendix III" (PDF). Bose Institute. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  6. 1 2 Gill, Piara Singh (1992). Up Against Odds: Autobiography of an Indian Scientist. Allied Publishers. p. 96. ISBN   9788170233640 . Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  7. ↑ Panchapakesan, N. (10 January 2014). "LIVING LEGENDS IN INDIAN SCIENCE: Asoke Nath Mitra" (PDF). Current Science. 106 (1): 106–109. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  8. ↑ Ivanov, Y. N. "Liquid Nitrogen Plant (Centre of Advanced Studies, Department of Physics and Astrophysics, University of Delhi)" (PDF). UNESCO. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  9. ↑ Bali, Arun P. (1 January 1986). College Teachers: Challenges and Responses : a Case Study of Delhi University. Northern Book Centre. p. 156. ISBN   9788185119212 . Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  10. ↑ "Deceased Fellow: Professor R. C. Majumdar". Indian National Science Academy. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
  11. ↑ "Past General Secretaries". The National Academy of Science, India. Retrieved 4 April 2017.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.