This is that time of the year
when science and spirituality are celebrated hand in hand in our country. In
February, India celebrated the National Science Day, and in March, it
celebrated the Maha Shivratri.
India observes the 28th
of February every year as National Science Day in honour of the famous Indian
physicist Sir C V Raman. It was on this day in 1928 that the phenomenon known
as “the Raman Effect” was discovered by Sir C V Raman. The Raman effect is not only leveraged
effectively in Raman spectroscopy commonly used in chemistry, but also explains
various visual phenomena including why the sea is blue. It postulates changes
in the wavelength of light when a light beam is deflected
by molecules, and that a fraction of the incident light emerges in
directions other than that of the incident beam. The water molecules in the sea
scatter white sunlight into wavelengths that fall in the blue regime of the
visible spectrum, and therefore the sea appears blue. The theme of the National
Science Day observed on 28th February 2019 was “Science for the People
and the People for Science”, and rightfully so as science is the greatest tool devised
by mankind to interpret the universe and to understand its behavior.
