National Science Day is celebrated all over India to commemorate the invention of the Raman Effect by the great Indian physicist Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman on February 28, 1928. The day is celebrated with a lot of enthusiasm to honour Dr Raman’s great achievement in the field of science. For his remarkable feat, Dr CV Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1930. National Science Day is celebrated as a science festival and schools and colleges all around the country hold events and Olympiads to commemorate this day. The events usually see students demonstrate their latest researches, projects on this day.
Who is CV Raman?
The eminent physicist was born in Madras province in India. Taught in Thiruvanaikovil, Ramna was formerly a lecturer in mathematics and physics in Mrs. A.V. Narasimha Rao College and Presidency College. He resigned from his government service and continued his research at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS). It is then that he discovered the Raman Effect in 1928 which finally got him the Nobel Prize. CV Raman is also the winner of Bharat Ratna and the Lenin Peace Prize.
February 28, 1928 is recognised as a path-breaking day in the history of Indian Science. It was on this day that CV Raman discovered the Raman Effect based on experiments on the scattering of lights. This invention was of great value since it gave further proof of the quantum nature of light. To commemorate this day, the Indian government designated this day as National Science Day on persuasion by the National Council for Science and Technology Communication (NCSTC) in the year 1986. The first ever National Science Day was celebrated in the year 1987.
The objective of celebrating this day is to spread the message of the importance of science and its application in the life of people. This promotes the awareness amongst the people about the daily application of science in the day to day life. Celebrating this day also encourages the people as well as popularises science and technology.