Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath was born in 7 May 1861 Calcutta. His father Debendranath Tagore was a leading light in the Brahmo Samaj – a reforming Hindu organisation which sought to promote a monotheistic interpretation of the Upanishads and move away from the rigidity of Hindu Orthodoxy which they felt was holding back India. Debendranath Tagore also encouraged his family to learn English.

Rabindranath began writing from an early age, and impressed with his free flowing style and spontaneous compositions. He mostly rejected formal schooling; he spent much time being taught at home. In 1878 he travelled to England and sought to study law at University College, London, but he left before finishing the degree.

After returning to India, in 1901, Tagore moved to Shantiniketan to found an ashram which became his focal point for writing and his view on schooling. He chose the name for the ashram – Shantiniketan meaning ‘Abode of Peace’

Tagore was firm friends with Gandhi and admired him very much. But, despite this friendship he could be critical of his views. For example, he disagreed with Gandhi’s views on Swaraj protests and upbraided Gandhi when Gandhi claimed an earthquake was ‘divine retribution for the mistreatment of dalits in India.’ Yet despite the frequent divergence of opinions, they could admire each other.

In 1913, Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature for his work ‘Gitanjali‘ This made his writings internationally known and his fame spread throughout the world. This gave Tagore the opportunity to travel extensively giving lectures and recitals in many different countries. He also became acquainted with many of the leading cultural contemporaries of the day; this included W.B.Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Romain Rolland, Robert Frost and Albert Einstein.

Tagore had a great love for nature and many of his poems invoke the simple beauties of the natural world. For Tagore, his religion could be found in the wonders and mysteries of nature – as much as in temples and sacred books.

Tagore was a prolific composer of music. He composed over 2,000 songs which have been popularised and sung widely across Bengal. Like his literature, he broke away from classical constraints to offer a great emotive and spiritual appeal. Tagore is unique for being the official composer for the national anthem of two countries – India’s Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh’s Amar Shonar Bangla.

Tagore was an opponent of British imperialism, though he also felt Indians had a duty to improve their self-education; he said that British rule was partly due to the state India had fallen into. In particular, he was very denigrating about India’s obsession with caste.

In 1919, Tagore returned his knighthood in protest at the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, in which many peaceful Indian protesters were killed.

Tagore was a polymath, towards the end of his life he took up art and also pursued an interest in science. Tagore was also very much an internationalist, criticising nationalism, though also writing songs and articles in support of the general principle of the Indian independence movement.

Tagore died on 7th August 1941, after a long and painful illness, aged 80

Bhagat Singh

Bhagat Singh (27/28 September 1907 – 23 March 1931) is an Indian socialist considered to be one of the most influential revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement.

He is born to Kishan singh and Vidyavadi in Banga village. He born into a Sikh family which had earlier been involved in revolutionary activities against the British Raj, as a teenager Singh studied European revolutionary movements and was attracted to anarchist and Marxist ideologies.

 At the time of his birth, his father and two uncles were release from Jail.

He is often called to as "Shaheed Bhagat Singh", the word "Shaheed" meaning "martyr" in a number of South Asian and Middle Eastern languages.

He was the leader of Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) which is now changing its name to the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association (HSRA) in 1928.

Achievements:

1.      Gave a new direction to revolutionary movement in India, formed 'Naujavan Bharat Sabha' 

2.      While studying at the local in Lahore, young Bhagat Singh came into contact with Lala Lajpat Rai and Ras Bihari Bose.

Bhagat Singh House

3.      In response to Mahatma Gandhi's call for non-cooperation against British Bhagat Singh left his school and actively participated in the movement in  1921

       4.   On October 7, 1930 Bhagat Singh, Sukh Dev and Raj Guru             were awarded death sentence by a special tribunal.

More Biography of Legends : Click Here

Dr. C.V. Raman

Dr. C.V. Raman was one of the greatest scientists of India, who won the Nobel Prize in science for his illustrious 1930 discovery, now commonly known as the “Raman Effect”. It is immensely surprising that Raman used an equipment worth merely Rs.200 to make this discovery. The Raman Effect is now examined with the help of equipment worth almost millions of rupees.

Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman, commonly known as C.V. Raman was born on November 7, 1888 at Tiruchirapalli in Tamillandu. His mother tongue was Tamil. He was the second children of Chandrasekhar Iyer and Pravathi Ammal. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics. Raman was a very brilliant student right from his childhood.

At an early age, Raman moved to the city of Vishakhapatnam, which is situated in state of Andhra Pradesh, where his father accepted a position at the Mr. A V N College. Raman’s academic brilliance was established at a very young age.

At the age of twelve, he finished his matriculation education and entered Mr. A V N College and two year later moved to the prestigious presidency college in Madras (Chennai).

When he was the age of fifteen he finished at the head of the class too received B. A. with honours in physics and English.

In those days, it was a system of government that students who did well academically were typically sent to abroad (England) for additional studies.

Because of Raman’s poor health, he was not allowed to go abroad and he continued his studies at the same college.

In 1907, barely seventeen, Raman received his Master degree with honors. He got first position in the University in M.A.

In the same year, he married with Lokasundari Ammal and with whom he had one son, Radhakrishnan.

He completed his education in Visakhapatanam and Madras (Chennai). After getting top ranking in the Financial Civil Service competitive Exam, he was appointed as Deputy Accountant general in Calcutta.

At the time of his graduation, there were few opportunities for scientists in India. This forced him to accept a position with the Indian Civil Services as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. While there, he was able to sustain his interest in science by working, in his remaining time, in the laboratories of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. He studied the physics of stringed instruments and Indian drums.

In 1917, he was offered the professor of Physics at the Calcutta University, and he decided to accept this opportunity. After 15 years’ service at the Calcutta University, he left that job and shifted to Bangalore and became the Director of the Indian Institute of Science, where two years later he continued as a professor of physics.

In 1947, the new Government of Independent India appointed him as the first National Professor. He also worked in the field of magnetic attraction and theory of musical instruments. He worked out the theory of transverse vibration of bowed strings, because of superposition velocities. This does a better job in explaining bowed string vibration over Helmholtzs approach.

Professor C V Raman was also the first to investigate the harmonic nature of the sound of the Indian drums such as the tabla and the mridanga.

In 1930, for the first time in its history, an Indian scholar, educated entirely in India has received highest honour in science, the ‘Nobel Prize’ in physics. In 1943, he founded ‘Raman Research Institute’, near Bangalore.

His discovery of the ‘Raman Effect’ made a very distinctive contribution to Physics. He was also conferred the hishest title of ‘Bharat Ratna’ in 1954. The ‘Raman Effect’ was a demonstration of the ‘Collision’ effect of light bullets (Photons) passing through a transparent medium, whether solid, liquid or gaseous. Raman was also awarded the ‘Lenin Peace Prize’ in 1957. India celebrates National Science day on 28th February every year to commemorate Raman’s discovery.

Technological achievements in India are being honored with IEEE Milestones in Electrical Engineering and Computing. The first millimeter-wave communications experiments, by J.C. Bose [left], and the molecular scattering of light, discovered by C.V. Raman [right], are to be recognized in Kolkata, West Bengal, on 14 and 15 September.

He retired from the Indian Institute in 1948 and after one year, he established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, served as its director and remained active there until his death, at the age of eighty-two. Sir Venkata Raman died on Nevember 21, 1970 at Bangalore, India. We should proud on him.

First 4 Men who walked on the MOON

Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. After the war, he earned his bachelor's degree at Purdue University and served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he logged over 900 flights. He later completed graduate studies at the University of Southern California.

A participant in the U.S. Air Force's Man in Space Soonest and X-20 Dyna-Soar human spaceflight programs, Armstrong joined the NASA Astronaut Corps in 1962. He made his first space flight, as command pilot of Gemini 8, in 1966, becoming NASA's first civilian astronaut to fly in space. On this mission, he performed the first docking of two spacecraft, with pilot David Scott.

Buzz Aldrin (born Edwin Eugene Aldrin, Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American engineer and former astronaut, and the second person to walk on the Moon. He was the Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing in history. He set foot on the Moon at 03:15:16 (UTC) on July 21, 1969, following mission commander Neil Armstrong. He is also a former U.S. Air Force officer and a Command Pilot.

Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr. (June 2, 1930 – July 8, 1999), was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, and during the Apollo 12 mission became the third man to walk on the Moon. He set an eight-day space endurance record along with his Command Pilot Gordon Cooper on the Gemini 5 mission, and commanded the Gemini 11 mission. After Apollo, he commanded the Skylab 2 mission (the first manned one), on which he and his crewmates repaired significant launch damage to the Skylab space station. For this, President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978.

Alan LaVern "Al" Bean (born March 15, 1932), is an American former naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. Bean was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3. He made his first flight into space aboard Apollo 12, the second manned mission to land on the Moon, at the age of thirty-seven years in November 1969. He made his second and final flight into space on the Skylab 3 mission in 1973, the second manned mission to the Skylab space station. After retiring from the United States Navy in 1975 and NASA in 1981, Bean pursued his interest in painting, depicting various space-related scenes and documenting his own experiences in space as well as that of his fellow Apollo Program astronauts.

Aryabhatta

Aryabhatta is the first of the great astronomers of the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy.

He was born in Kerala, in 476 AD but later lived in Kusumapura, which his commentator Bhaskara I (629 AD) identifies with pataliputra (modern Patna) in Bihar.

His first name “Arya” is hardly a south Indian name while “Bhatt” (or Bhatta) is a typical north Indian name even found today specially among the trader community.

Aryabhatta studied at the University of Nalanda. One of his major works was Aryabhatiya written in 499 AD. His book aryabhatiya covers astronomical and mathematical theories in which the earth was taken to be spinning on its axis and the periods of the planets were given with respect to the sun.

He is the man who found the number zero (0). After the arrival of zero the number system had changed to new strategy.

Aryabhatta believes that the moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight and he also believes that the orbits of the planets are ellipses. He correctly explains the causes of eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. His value for the length of the year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30 seconds is remarkably close to the true value which is about 365 days 6 hours. In this book, the day was reckoned from one sunrise to the next, whereas in his Aryabhata-siddhanta he took the day from one midnight to another. There was also difference in some astronomical parameters.

Aryabhatta was the first to explain how the Lunar Eclipse and the Solar Eclipse happened. Aryabhatta also gave close approximation for Pi. In the Aryabhatiya, he wrote-“Add 4 to 100, multiply by 8, then add 62000 and then divided by 20000. The result is approximately the circumference of a circle of diameter twenty thousand. By this rule the relation of the circumference to diameter is given.” In other words, p ~ 62832/20000= 3.1416, correct to four rounded – off decimal places. 

Aryabhatta was the first astronomers to make an attempt at measuring the earth’s circumference. Aryabhata accurately calculated the earth’s circumference as 24835 miles, which was only 0.2 % smaller than the actual value of 24,902 miles. This approximation remained the most accurate for over a thousand years.

Aryabhatiya was translated into Latin in the 13th century. Through this translation, European mathematician got to know methods for calculating the areas of triangles, volumes of spheres as well as square and cube root. 

Aryabhatta’s ideas about eclipses and the sun being the sources of moonlight may not have caused much of an impression on European astronomers as by then they had come to know of these facts through the observations of Copernicus and Galileo. Considering that Aryabhatta discovered these facts 1500 years ago, and 1000 years before Copernicus and Galileo makes him an early pioneer of this field. Aryabhatta – Siddhanta were reliable for practical purpose of fixing the Panchanga (Hindu Calendar) .

Albert Einstein

Was Einstein's Brain Different?

Einstein's Father

Of course it was-people's brains are as different as their faces. In his lifetime many wondered if there was anything especially different in Einstein's. He insisted that on his death his brain be made available for research. When Einstein died in 1955, pathologist Thomas Harvey quickly preserved the brain and made samples and sections. He reported that he could see nothing unusual. The variations were within the range of normal human variations. There the matter rested until 1999. Inspecting samples that Harvey had carefully preserved, Sandra F. Witelson and colleagues discovered that Einstein's brain lacked a particular small wrinkle (the parietal operculum) that most people have. Perhaps in compensation, other regions on each side were a bit enlarged-the inferior parietal lobes. These regions are known to have something to do with visual imagery and mathematical thinking. Thus Einstein was apparently better equipped than most people for a certain type of thinking. Yet others of his day were probably at least as well equipped-Henri Poincaré and David Hilbert, for example, were formidable visual and mathematical thinkers, both were on the trail of relativity, yet Einstein got far ahead of them. What he did with his brain depended on the nurturing of family and friends, a solid German and Swiss education, and his own bold personality.

Einstein's Mother

A late bloomer: Even at the age of nine Einstein spoke hesitantly, and his parents feared that he was below average intelligence. Did he have a learning or personality disability (such as "Asperger's syndrome," a mild form of autism)? There is not enough historical evidence to say. Probably Albert was simply a thoughtful and somewhat shy child. If he had some difficulties in school, the problem was probably resistance to the authoritarian German teachers, perhaps compounded by the awkward situation of a Jewish boy in a Catholic school.

Facts about Einstein

• Einstein's great breakthroughs came from visual experiments performed in his head rather than the lab.

His Class Photo( Einstein is in Right second of First Row)

• Einstein was a slow learner as a child and spoke very slowly.
• The pathologist who made Einstein body's autopsy stole his brain and kept it in a jar for 20 years.

• Einstein's Nobel Prize money went to his ex-wife as divorce settlement
• Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel which he politely declined.

E=MC2

• Einstein Failed his University Entrance Exam, and had to reapply a year later.
• Einstein was famous for having bad memory
• He could not remember names, dates and phone numbers
• Albert Einstein had no car of his own and he also never learned how to drive.

His Signature