Catalogus : Recensies
Recensies
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Rajinder Singh Einstein Rediscovered: Interactions with Indian Academics ISBN: 978-3-8440-6618-0 Prijs: 21,90 € / 27,40 SFR |
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Rajinder Singh is a well-established Historian of Science who has already published two dozen monographs on the Indian history of science, especially dedicated to contributions of the Calcutta School. He started his journey in this field by working on his Ph.D. thesis: “Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman’s work on Light Scattering”. I had the privilege to review half a dozen monographs of the author. I believe the present volume is most interesting due to its coverage of interactions of Einstein with Indian Academics beyond frontiers of science. It shows all traits of the personality of Einstein, the greatest scientist of twentieth century, while dealing with Indian academics. In the “Preface” to this volume, Rajinder writes about his motive: “There are a number of books on Albert Einstein. To the best of my knowledge, there is no literature which extensively deals with his relation with Indian men of science, as well as the reception of his scientific ideas like light quanta and the theory of relativity. The present book is written to fill the gap”. He continues to elaborate further in his concluding remarks (Chapter 8) that his main aim was to clear the myths surrounding Bose-Einstein relations and about the status of Indian science and scientists. In his “Foreword”, S.C. Roy has recalled the nature of relationship of Indian scientists and Einstein. He recounts: “The relationship between Meghnad Saha and Einstein was quite informal and friendly as Saha discussed many other issues beyond physics. This could probably be due to similar mindsets of the two. Both Einstein and Saha were of the opinion that scientists must also work towards increasing the society’s awareness of the implications of scientific discoveries”. In the introductory chapter, Rajinder writes: “S.N. Bose is the only Indian physicist whose name appears with Einstein, that being in the case of Bose-Einstein statistics. In some circles it is believed that Einstein betrayed Bose by not guiding him properly or even removing the concept of photon’s spin from Bose’s manuscript” Chapter 1 illustrates the humane nature of Einstein when he helped financially the bankrupt student, A.M. Bose, who was nephew of J.C. Bose and had a reference letter from Rabindra Nath Tagore. Einstein had intimate relations with non-scientists of India: “Einstein communicated not only with renowned politicians but also intellectuals and writers such as Amlan Datta – an economist, who was associated with the Presidency College, Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and the University of Calcutta”. Einstein offered to promote his publication “For Democracy” in Germany, which shows his soft corner for Indians. In Chapter 2, Rajinder has exploded the myth of betrayal of S.N. Bose by Einstein by his judicious choice of literature from the archives in Germany and elsewhere. In the section “In defense of Einstein”, the author refers to the correspondence between the two which was very cordial: “Bose-Einstein statistics was the brain-child of two brilliant scientists. As long as they lived, there was no sign of a sour relationship between the two. After S.N. Bose’s death his students and supporters started attacking Einstein. Their argument is based on oral history”. Einstein always supported S.N. Bose in advancement of his scientific career through letters of reference to Indian universities. If Einstein used Bose’s idea and extended the theory to ideal gases himself, does it not amount to betrayal?Rajinder liberates Einstein from the charge of betrayal:”No. In the world of scientific research, nobody gives ideas to others for extension. Why expect it from Einstein? But this did not end the relationship between Einstein and Bose because the German physicist saw Bose as a colleague and went out of his way to bring his work to the knowledge of international community.” Chapter 3 is based on personal correspondence of D.M. Bose with Einstein. S.N. Bose and M.N. Saha had corresponded with Einstein over a long span and translated his papers which were published in the form of a book. This is for the first time that Rajinder has produced the evidence that D.M. Bose acknowledged the influence of Einstein on his work: “The assumption on which my theory is based finds its chief support in the gyromagnetic experiments on ferromagnetic substances carried on by Einstein – de Haas and others. ... The results of these experiments show that g is independent of the nature of the substance and is equal to 2 within the limits of experimental error”. In Chapter 4, the author tries to establish the equation between Einstein and M.N. Saha, the brilliant astrophysicist of India. M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose translated the papers of Einstein under the title: “The Principle of Relativity: Original Papers by A. Einstein and H. Minkowski”. M.N. Saha visited Berlin twice, met Einstein to discuss his research problems and got help to carry out his experiments. D.S. Kothari, one of brilliant students of Saha, was in touch with Einstein. He requested Einstein to write a few words for the occasion of the inauguration of a new Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Delhi. Einstein wrote to D.S. Kothari: “Keep good comradeship and work with love and without pre-conceived ideas and you will be happy and successful in your work.” Chapter 5 is a short one on C.V. Raman and Einstein. Raman had no direct correspondence with Einstein. He acknowledges his indebtedness to Einstein in his obituary note of 1955: “I need therefore add here only a brief acknowledgement of my own personal indebtedness to the inspiration that I have derived from time to time from a study of Einstein’s fundamental papers on thermodynamics, light-scattering and quantum theory. I have returned to them again and again in the course of my work and benefited thereby.” Chapter 6 “Reception of light quanta by the Indian scientific community” is the most captivating in this volume where the author discusses the influence of Einstein’s hypothesis of light quanta on scientists of both East and West. The author refers to the work of two Indian scientists, S.M. Sen and B. Misra, who were highly critical and had raised objections to Einstein’s theory of light quanta. Raman’s experiments provided confirmation of light quanta hypothesis but he had no occasion to interact with its founder in person. However, Einstein paid high accolade to C.V. Raman during an interview recorded in Princeton: “C.V. Raman was the first to recognize and demonstrate that the energy of a photon can undergo a partial transformation within matter. I still recall vividly the deep impression that this discovery made on all of us who at the time attended the Physics colloquium in Berlin.” Chapter 7 “Theory of Relativity, Indians’ Reaction” has been written with a probing eye by the author as it clearly establishes the worth of Indian scientists in this field: “India is a global player in the field of the theory of relativity as is evident from different articles, which deal with history and a state-of-the-art. One of the well-known works in post-independent India is Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri’s equation, which is central to the understanding of gravitational attraction in astrophysics and cosmology, and in particular underlies the famous singularity theorems of general relativity theory.” Rajinder has given detailed description of theoretical and experimental work of Indian scientists (G. Prasad, M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose) of Calcutta School and Kodaikanal Observatory under the direction of J. Evershed. Author highlights the work of N.R. Sen of Calcutta School of Relativity and that of V.V. Narlikar of Benares School of Relativity. Experimental work on the observation of the red-shift in support of theory of relativity was carried out by J. Evershed, T. Royds, and A.A.N. Ayyar of Kodaikanal Observatory in India. Towards the end of this Chapter, the author refers to “Criticism of Einstein’s ideas by Shah M. Sulaiman and an alternative approach”. M.N. Saha recommends Sulaiman’s work as follows: “Sir S.M. Sulaiman has formulated an intensely original Theory of Relativity, which has attracted widespread attention in Europe and America”. In Chapter 8 “Concluding Remarks”, Rajinder shows his magnanimity in the following words:”India owes much to Albert Einstein, who communicated with a number of Indian men of science and culture. What we see from the foregoing chapters is, apart from S.N. Bose, there were many more Indians who sent him (Einstein) requests for commenting on or publishing their papers. In the majority of cases he gave his sincere comments. We have also seen that he wrote recommendation letters for S.N. Bose, M.N. Saha, and A.M. Bose. Einstein even offered financial support to A.M. Bose. This shows the humane side of Einstein”. The author claims to explode some other myths like the lack of facility for high-end research due to poor conditions in India. His critical remarks are as follows: (i) “In those days Indian men of science were well connected. This I write as most of science historians, in particular from social sciences, write that Indian men were working in isolation and on periphery!! (ii) Indian scientists had enough money to go abroad and study at the science centers like Germany, France and UK. They were not “poor” scientists. (iii) Persons like Sulaiman dared to oppose popular views on theory of relativity. His ideas were taken seriously abroad. (iv) Einstein replied, almost each and every letter of Indian men of science, even that of a 12 year old young student (R.L. Brahmachary). (v) He did not betray S.N. Bose as some famous Indian scientists like E.C.G. Sudarshan and P. Ghosh propagate in their outpourings. I am sure that after reading the book, you will make your own opinion”. There is an exhaustive bibliography at the end which shows the enormous labour undertaken by the author to prepare this unique monograph for researchers in science and humanities. I congratulate Rajinder for bringing out hidden facets of Indian academics interaction with Albert Einstein in a fascinating story that reads like a novel. S Hardev Singh Virk, Ex-Professor, G.N.D. University, Amritsar. e-mail : hardevsingh.virk@gmail.com |
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| Bron: Science and Culture, November-December, 2019 | |
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