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A physicist's advice

That meteorologists need a good grounding in physics and mathematics may not occur to many laymen. Nor would many know that Nobel laureate C. V. Raman spent much of the latter part of his career applying the "Raman effect" to optical aspects of weather phenomena such as mirages, thunderstorms and zonal winds.

In a talk delivered under the auspices of the Indian Meteorological Society at the Met Centre here on Monday, physicist Y.S.T. Rao dwelt on the applications of physics in meteorology. He pointed out that one of Raman's famous papers had dealt with the question of why stars twinkle.

The usual explanation was that twinkling is caused by changes in the refractive index of starlight owing to pressure fluctuations in the intervening atmosphere. Raman went one step further and actually started counting the photons reaching the eye during the period of optical perception and arrived at the average figure of 160.

"Theoretically, meteorologists can use starry twinkling to study the pressure fluctuations in the atmosphere; in fact, research in that direction is on," Dr. Rao said. He noted that the Indian Meteorological Department was once the biggest employer of physicists and mathematicians. Back in 1922, possibly the first Indian Director General of the IMD, Sudhanshu Kumar Banerjee, was a Ph.D. in mathematics.

The physicist's parting advice to weathermen: "Whenever you find anything interesting in your line of work, pursue it. That is what research is all about!"

M. HARISH GOVIND

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