A synthesis of the Quantum theory of Neils Bohr and the Field theory of Albert Einstein was evolved from a new theory of a great Indian scientist — Satyendra Nath Bose. The theory put forward by Bose explained the behaviour of subatomic particles. He showed that photons—the packets of energy, could behave quite differently from the assumptions of that time. Later Einstein further developed Bose’s ideas into a set of calculations which later came to be known as the ‘Bose-Einstein’ statistics. Though Bose and Einstein never worked together yet their long association was maintained through correspondence.
A student of mathematics knows about Bose- Einstein statistics. This was a new type of quantum statistics and the particles to which this statistics is applicable are called Bosons, after the name of Bose.
S.N. Bose was born in Calcutta on January 1, 1894. His father Surendranath Bose was a railway official. He went to Hindu School, Calcutta, for his primary education. There is an interesting episode which offers a glimpse into his genius. In school he once got 110 marks out of 100 in the mathematics paper because he had solved some problems in more than one way. His teacher predicted that one day he would become a great mathematician.
After school he went to the Presidency College, Calcutta, in 1909. He became favourite with most professors for his brilliancy. He always stood first in all his exams—Intermediate, B.Sc. and M.Sc.
In 1916, he was appointed a lecturer in Physics in the Science College of Calcutta University. He translated Einstein’s original papers on relativity from German to English in 1915.
In 1921, Bose left Calcutta to join the Dacca University as a reader in Physics. In 1923, he submitted his magnum opus on the derivation of Plank’s equation to a British journal, the Philosophical Magazine. But unfortunately the referee did not recommend its publication and the paper was rejected. Bose sent this rejected paper to Einstein for his comments. In reply Einstein wrote that this paper had an important contribution to make in mathematics. Einstein translated this work into German and got it published in Zeit fur Physik. Bose’s paper of 1924 made him world famous and thus his name became associated with Einstein.
Bose went to Paris in 1924 on a study leave to carry out some research under Madame Curie. There he spent ten months working for some time with Madame Curie and Louis de Broglie. Bose sent another paper to Einstein which was translated by Einstein himself and published in Zeit fur Physik. From Paris, Bose went to Berlin. Einstein accorded him a warm welcome. There he had discussions with the world’s renowned scientists such as Plank, Schrodinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Sommerfeld and Einstein himself. Bose adopted Einstein as his Guru (teacher) in the oriental tradition, though he never worked with him.
From Berlin he came back to Dacca and was appointed as Professor and Head of the Department of Physics. In 1945, he left Dacca and joined the University Science College in Calcutta as Professor of Physics. After his retirement in 1956 he was appointed as the Vice-Chancellor of the Visvabharati University (1956-58). In all he published around 24 papers on various aspects of Physics.
In 1958 he was elected a Fellow of Royal Society of London. In the same year he was also awarded Padma Vibhusan by the Govt. of India. On 4th February, 1974, he died following a heart attack.