After meeting Sage Lomasa, Kakabhushundi entered the wormhole to go back to the time he saw Rama. He was thinking about the sage’s words about the purpose of his life being knowledge transfer. At the coordinate point of the time-travelling wormhole, Kakabhushundi got pulled into the future because he wanted to meet a Rama who was famous for his scientific knowledge.
Imagine his surprise when he landed in a physics conference in 1922 where a scientist called Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman was talking about his research on the scattering of light.
C.V. Raman: In 1921, while on a ship to England, I noticed something amazing. The colour of the Mediterranean Sea was a dark blue. I began to wonder why that was so.
A scientist: Didn’t you know that the scientist Raleigh said that the ocean reflects the colour of the sky?
C.V. Raman: Yes, I am also a fan of Raleigh’s work on light optics, but I think there is something more here. If the waters were reflecting the colour of the sky, why was the sea dark blue and not sky blue?
Though none of the scientists had an answer to this question, they did not like the fact that Raman had questioned Raleigh’s work. Some even started questioning Raman’s knowledge. Kakabhushundi, sitting outside the room, listened to the heated debate.
C.V. Raman: The reason for the colour of the Mediterranean Sea is not just reflection of light but also scattering of light. I wrote to the science journals about this phenomenon as soon as the ship docked at the next port.
Having said this, Raman performed a simple experiment, using a light source with a violet filter to pass through glycerine. The spectrometer showed a blue light along with violet light. The audience was stunned.
Curious, Kakabhushundi decided to travel further into the same year, where Raman is presenting another research paper on “Molecular scattering of light in water and the colour of the sea”. After he finishes, Raman received an ovation.
Kakabhushundi is even more intrigued to see what happens next in C.V. Raman’s life and travels to 1930. That year, on February 28, C.V. Raman is awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, the first Indian to receive the award in a scientific discipline and the second to receive a Nobel Prize after Rabindranath Tagore in 1913. After watching the scientist receive the award, Kakabhushundi returned to Sage Lomasa.
Kakabhushundi: Even though C.V. Raman is an Indian, he received the award under a British flag.
Sage Lomasa: Don’t worry about that. It is all part of the process of evolution. But tell me, what was the discovery of the Rama you met?
Kakabhushundi: I didn’t exactly understand it but it seems like he discovered the different names of the Surya’s seven horses and how they behave.
Sage Lomasa: His discovery is known as the Raman Effect and February 28, the day he announced the discovery is celebrated as National Science Day in India. Since you say you didn’t understand it, let me show you what he meant with this experiment.
The Raman Effect
Material required
A rectangular glass box
Distilled or clean water
Milk
Laser light
White paper
Step 1 | Photo Credit: Illustration: Satheesh Vellinezhi
Step 1: Paste the white paper on one side of the container and fill it with water. Now point the laser light through the glass. The light passes through the glass and the water without much energy loss or scattering.
Step 2 | Photo Credit: Illustration: Satheesh Vellinezhi
Step 2: Now add 50-100 ml of milk in the water and mix well. Shine the laser light and you will see a red line passing through the water-milk mix upto a certain point.
Step 3 | Photo Credit: Illustration: Satheesh Vellinezhi
Step 3: Add another 250ml of milk and stir. Now shine the laser and you will notice that the red light appears till halfway through the container.
Step 4 | Photo Credit: Illustration: Satheesh Vellinezhi
Step 4: Now remove the liquid in the container and use only milk. When you shine the laser, you will see there is no red light passing through the milk. Instead, it is a glowing red ball.
Sage Lomasa: Do you see how, with the addition of milk, the light pattern changed? This is a form of light scattering. This helps understand concepts like reflection, scattering of light, both elastic and inelastic…
Kakbhushundi: This is all too much to take in. I have to give my brain some rest before I learn any more science. But I am also prepared now for knowledge transfer across multiverses.
Kakabhushundi flies off, after bidding Sage Lomasa goodbye.
The author is the founder and CEO of Vaayusastra Aerospace, an IIT-Madras incubated ed-tech startup that offers Air Science workshops for children between five and 14 years.
