E002 Core 16 - History of Science and Technology Since 17th Century - VI Sem
E002 Core 16 - History of Science and Technology Since 17th Century - VI Sem
E002 Core 16 - History of Science and Technology Since 17th Century - VI Sem
A HISTORY
HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
SEMESTER - VI, ACADEMIC YEAR 2020 - 21
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UNIT - I
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE 17TH CENTURY
Science and technology is a topic that encompasses science, technology, and the
interactions between the two. Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes
knowledge in the form of explanations and predictions about nature and the universe.
Technology is the collection of techniques, methods or processes has been used in the
production of goods or services or the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific
investigation, or any other consumer demands.
Science encompasses the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the
physical and natural world through observation and experiment, and technology is the
application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes. Humans then use science to apply to
technology practices.
Technology is used through process and design to improve the quality of our lives in
many forms. The telescope, invented around this time, proved to be the greatest scientific
instrument of this period. In the hands of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), a professor of physics and
military engineering at Padua, it became a means of revolution in science. Galileo was able to
see that the moon was not a perfect round and smooth body but it had ridges and valleys. He
also observed that three moons circled around the planet Jupiter, more or less like the system
Copernicus had proposed for the earth going round the sun. Within a month, in 1610, he
published his observations in his book SideriusNunrius, (Messenger from the Stars). It created a
great sensation because the 2000 year old model of heavenly bodies going round the earth was
threatened. It challenged the accepted world view that man, specially created by God, lived on
earth, hence, it was natural to believe that the whole universe revolved around the earth.
Galileo's more detailed work, entitled Dialogue concerning the Two Chief Systems of the World,
the Ptolemaic and the Copernican was published in 1632 and was, indeed, dedicated to the
Pope. In this he criticised and ridiculed the ancient Ptolemaic cosmology. The challenge put
down by Galileo could not be ignored. Far more was seen to be at stake than a mere academic
point about the motion of the earth and planets. If the challenge in one respect was ignored,
more such challenges would arise. The new knowledge threatened the stability of the Church
and the social order itself.
Galileo and Kepler could formulate mathematical descriptions of the motion of bodies
because they were masters of the new mathematics that had grown during the Renaissance.
Algebra, geometry and the decimaI system, taken from the ancients and the Arabs, as well as
the introduction of logarithm by Napier (1550-1617), greatly simplified astronomical
calculations.
ROYAL ACADEMIES
The developments in the latter half of the seventeenth century paved the way for an
outburst of Science activity which created modern science in most of its fields in the next fifty
years. These were helped by the emergence of stable governments in France and England, the
two principal centres for scientific activity in those times. The merchants in Britain had arranged
a compromise with landlords, in which the king became the constitutional monarch. The
economy was dominated by the merchants. But, more importantly. A new class of
manufacturers was emerging from among the skilled craftsmen.
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The courtiers and the learned men of the universities, dependent on the favour of the
princes of yesteryears, were being replaced by men of independent means. These were mostly
merchants, landowners, doctors, lawyers and quite a few Parsons. They financed science out of
their pockets. As they grew in number, they tended to come together for discussion and
exchange of ideas. Thus were formed the first well-established scientific societies, the Royal
Society of London (1662) and the French Royal Academy ( 1666). These societies set themselves
the task of concentrating on the pressing technical problems of those times, those of pumping
and hydraulics, of gunnery and of navigation.
ISSAC NEWTON(1642-1727)
He was born in 1642, at Lincolnshire, Britain. He was a famous mathematician and
physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects during this period. Grantham in Lincolnshire,
where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of
Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the
university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was
at the height of his creative power.
Newton’s Theory of Color Arguably our modern understanding of light and color begins
with Newton’s discovery of light dispersion which he published in 1672. Newton’s greatest
achievement was his work in physics and celestial mechanics, which culminated in the theory of
universal gravitation. By 1666, Newton had early versions of his three laws of motion. Using his
discoveries in optics, Newton constructed the first reflecting telescope.
WILLIAM HARVEY
William Harvey was born on April 1, 1578. Harvey attended King's School, Canterbury
for five years. Scholarship that enabled him to enter Caius College, Cambridge, in May 1593,
was essentially a medical scholarship. He received his Arts degree in 1597.
He proceeded to practice medicine in London and the Royal College of Physicians elected
him as candidate in 1604, also the year of his marriage. Three years later the College elected
him a Fellow. St. Bartholomew's Hospital appointed him Physician of the Hospital in 1609. The
College of Physicians honored him in 1615 by appointing him Lumleian Lecturer. The
appointment was for life, and Harvey was to give a series of anatomic and surgical lectures over
a period of six years. Having completed the first series, he would then start on the second six-
year cycle.
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His lecture notes for the 1616 series are still in existence and contain the earliest record
of Harvey's work on the circulation of the blood. Harvey published three major works of which
the first, the "De MotuCordis" of 1628, is, of course, the most important. The second, the "De
CirculationeSanguinis " (1649) consisting of two letters to Jean Riolan, is for all practical
purposes a supplement to the "De MotuCordis." The third, "De GenerationeAnimalium."
Marcello Malpighi
Marcello Malpighi was born in the town of Crevalcore at the outskirts of Bologna, Italy,
on 10 March 1628. He enrolled at the University of Bologna in 1646 to study medicine and
philosophy. He obtained doctorates in both medicine and philosophy in 1653 from Bologna. He
was served as Professor of Medicine at the University of Bologna in 1656. During this time he
became a member of the anatomical society. Malpighi became a member of the Academia del
Cimento, one of the earliest scientific societies (Giglioni, 1997).
Malpighi was one of the first to use the compound microscope (microscope with both
an objective and an eyepiece lens), and much of his research was made possible by the
introduction of the evolved instrument which as such proved to be a boon for scientific
advances. His historic description of the pulmonary capillaries was documented in 1661.
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UNIT – II
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN 18TH CENTURY
During the Enlightenment was dominated by scientific societies and academies, which
had largely replaced universities as centers of scientific research and development. Societies
and academies were also the backbone of the maturation of the scientific profession. Another
important development was the popularization of science among an increasingly literate
population. Philosophes introduced the public to many scientific theories. One of the most
important developments that the Enlightenment era brought to the discipline of science was its
popularization. An increasingly literate population seeking knowledge and education in both
the arts and the sciences drove the expansion of print culture and the dissemination of
scientific learning. The importance of the lectures was not in teaching complex mathematics or
physics, but rather in demonstrating to the wider public the principles of physics and
encouraging discussion and debate.
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Lavoisier's oxygen theory of combustion however, more recent studies attribute a wider range
of factors as contributing forces behind the chemical revolution.
The first strong evidence against phlogiston theory came from pneumatic chemists in
Britain during the later half of the 18th century. Joseph Black, Joseph Priestley and Henry
Cavendish all identified different gases that composed air; however, it was not until Antoine
Lavoisier discovered in the fall of 1772 that, when burned, sulphur and phosphorus“gain in
weight that the phlogiston theory began to unravel. Lavoisier subsequently discovered and
named oxygen, described its role in animal respiration and the calcination of metals exposed to
air (1774–1778). In 1783, Lavoisier found that water was a compound of oxygen and hydrogen.
Lavoisier’s years of experimentation formed a body of work that contested phlogiston theory.
After reading his “Reflections on Phlogiston” to the Academy in 1785, chemists began dividing
into camps based on the old phlogiston theory and the new oxygen theory.
A new form of chemical nomenclature, developed by Louis Bernard Guyton de Morveau,
with assistance from Lavoisier, classified elements binomially into a genus and a species. For
example, burned lead was of the genus oxide and species lead. The new chemistry was
established in Glasgow and Edinburgh early in the 1790s, but was slow to become established
in Germany. Eventually the oxygen-based theory of combustion drowned out the phlogiston
theory and in the process created the basis of modern chemistry
Henry Cavendish
Henry Cavendish was born on October 10, 1731, at Nice, France. He went to the
Hackney Academy, a private school near London, and in 1748 entered Peterhouse College,
Cambridge, where he remained for three years. he lived a life of service to science, both
through his researches and through his participation in scientific organizations. He was active in
the Council of the Royal Society of London (to which he was elected in 1765); his interest and
expertise in the use of scientific instruments led him to head a committee to review the Royal
Society’s meteorological instruments and to help assess the instruments of the Royal
Greenwich Observatory.
His first publication (1766) was a combination of three short chemistry papers on
“factitious airs,” or gases produced in the laboratory. He produced “inflammable air”
(hydrogen) by dissolving metals in acids and “fixed air” (carbon dioxide) by dissolving alkalis in
acids, and he collected these and other gases in bottles inverted over water or mercury. He
then measured their solubility in water and their specific gravity and noted their combustibility.
Cavendish was awarded the Royal Society’s Copley Medal for this paper. In 1783
Cavendish published a paper on eudiometry (the measurement of the goodness of gases for
breathing). Cavendish worked out a comprehensive theory of electricity. Like his theory of heat,
this theory was mathematical in form and was based on precise quantitative experiments. In
1771 he published an early version of his theory, based on an expansive electrical fluid that
exerted pressure. He was a natural philosopher, the greatest experimental and theoretical
English chemist and physicist of his age. Cavendish was distinguished for great accuracy and
precision in research into the composition of atmospheric air, the properties of different gases,
the synthesis of water, the law governing electrical attraction and repulsion, a mechanical
theory of heat, and calculations of the density (and hence the weight) of Earth. His experiment
to weigh Earth has come to be known as the Cavendish experiment.
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JOSEPH PRIESTLY
Priestley was born near Leeds, a major city in Yorkshire in the north of England. Priestley
studied theology at the Daventry Academy where liberal, enlightened emphases were strong.
As a nonconformist, or dissenter from the established Church of England, he was precluded
from attending most higher institutions including Oxford and Cambridge. In 1780 Priestley
moved to Birmingham where he continued his teaching and research. While he was there he
became a member of the famous Lunar Society that included inventors, scientists,
manufacturers, and others.
He published a book titled The History and Present State of Electricity (10) that went
through five editions and translations into French and German. He made several discoveries in
this area, including the conductivity of charcoal, and he proposed that electrical force was
similar to Newton’s gravitational force in following an inverse square law. Priestley first
produced oxygen. He did this by heating red mercuric oxide (known at the time as
mercuriuscalcinatus per se) by focusing the sun’s rays using a convex lens of 12 inches
diameter. The experiment was not trivial. First, to produce red mercuric oxide it was necessary
to heat mercury exposed to air to near its boiling point for several months. In 1772 Priestley
discovered no less than four new gases. One of these was nitric oxide (NO2), although in his
terminology this was called “nitrous air. The next gas that Priestley discovered was nitrous
oxide (N2O). Another discovery was hydrogen chloride (HCl), which he called “marine acid air.”
This was made by heating copper with spirit of salt, but he eventually realized that the marine
acid air was simply the fumes of the spirit of salt. Finally in 1772 he produced carbon monoxide
(CO), which he called “combined fixed air.” This was done by heating charcoal. Priestley was
died in 1804.
LAVOISIER
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, also Antoine Lavoisier was born August 26, 1743, Paris,
France. Lavoisier was able to spend much of his three years as a law student attending public
and private lectures on chemistry and physics and working under the tutelage of leading
naturalists. Lavoisier began pursuing scientific research that in 1768 gained him admission
into France’s foremost natural philosophy society, the Academy of Sciences in Paris.a French
nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a
large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology. He is widely
considered in popular literature as the "father of modern chemistry". Antoine-Laurent
Lavoisier, a meticulous experimenter, revolutionized chemistry.
John Hunter
John Hunter was born on Feb. 13, 1728, Long Calderwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland. He
went to London in 1748 to assist in the preparation of dissections for the course of anatomy
taught by his brother William, a famed obstetrician. In the summers of 1749 and 1750 he
learned surgery from William Cheselden at Chelsea Hospital. In 1753 he was elected a master of
anatomy at Surgeon’s Hall, responsible for reading lectures.
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Hunter wrote The Natural History of the Human Teeth (1771), A Treatise on the
Venereal Disease (1786), and Observations on Certain Parts of the Animal economy (1786). A
Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation, and Gun-shot Wounds was published posthumously in
1794. Surgeon, founder of pathological anatomy in England, and early advocate of investigation
and experimentation. He also carried out many important studies and experiments in
comparative aspects of biology, anatomy, physiology, and pathology. He was died on Oct. 16,
1793, London.
Edward Jenner
He was born on May 17, 1749, at Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England. He
attended grammar school and at the age of 13 was apprenticed to a nearby surgeon. In the
following eight years Jenner acquired a sound knowledge of medical and surgical practice. On
completing his apprenticeship at the age of 21, he went to London and became the house pupil
of John Hunter. In addition to his training and experience in biology, Jenner made progress in
clinical surgery. After studying in London from 1770 to 1773, he returned to country practice in
Berkeley and enjoyed substantial success. He was capable, skillful, and popular. In addition to
practicing medicine, he joined two medical groups for the promotion of medical knowledge and
wrote occasional medical papers. He played the violin in a musical club, wrote light verse, and,
as a naturalist, made many observations, particularly on the nesting habits of the cuckoo and
on bird migration was widespread in the 18th century, and occasional outbreaks of special
intensity resulted in a very high death rate. The disease, a leading cause of death at the time,
respected no social class, and disfigurement was not uncommon in patients who recovered.
The only means of combating smallpox was a primitive form of vaccination called variolation—
intentionally infecting a healthy person with the “matter” taken from a patient sick with a mild
attack of the disease. The practice, which originated in China and India, was based on two
distinct concepts: first, that one attack of smallpox effectively protected against any
subsequent attack and, second, that a person deliberately infected with a mild case of the
disease would safely acquire such protection. It was, in present-day terminology, an “elective”
infection—i.e., one given to a person in good health. Unfortunately, the transmitted disease did
not always remain mild, and mortality sometimes occurred. Furthermore, the inoculated
person could disseminate the disease to others and thus act as a focus of infection.
Jenner had been impressed by the fact that a person who had suffered an attack
of cowpox—a relatively harmless disease that could be contracted from cattle—could not take
the smallpox—i.e., could not become infected whether by accidental or intentional exposure to
smallpox. Pondering this phenomenon, Jenner concluded that cowpox not only protected
against smallpox but could be transmitted from one person to another as a deliberate
mechanism of protection.
The story of the great breakthrough is well known. In May 1796 Jenner found a young
dairymaid, Sarah Nelmes, who had fresh cowpox lesions on her hand. On May 14, using matter
from Sarah’s lesions, he inoculated an eight-year-old boy, James Phipps, who had never had
smallpox. Phipps became slightly ill over the course of the next 9 days but was well on the 10th.
On July 1 Jenner inoculated the boy again, this time with smallpox matter. No disease
developed; protection was complete. In 1798 Jenner, having added further cases, published
privately a slender book entitled An Inquiry into the Causes andEffects of the VariableVaccine.
He was died January 26, 1823, Berkeley.
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UNIT - III
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN 19TH CENTURY
During the 19th century science made great progress. John Dalton (1766-1844)
published his atomic theory in 1808. In 1827 the German chemist Friedrich Wohler (1800-1882)
isolated aluminium. In 1828 he produced urea, an organic compound from inorganic
chemicals. The Englishman Michael Faraday (1791-1867) invented the dynamo. Darwin's
monumental work The Origin of Species was published in 1859. Medicine and surgery made
great advances in the 19th century. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) proved that microscopic
organisms caused disease. In the 19th century people mastered electricity. In the mid 19th
century travel was revolutionized by railways. In the 19th century many people experimented
with machine guns. In 1862 Richard Gatling invented the Gatling gun.
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, on February 12, 1809. In 1831, he
embarked on a five-year voyage around the world on the HMS Beagle. He studied at Christ
college, Cambridge(1828-1831) and University of Edinberg.
In 1838, He included mankind in his speculations from the outset, and on seeing an
orangutan in the zoo on 28 March 1838 noted its childlike behavior. In 1842, Darwin's book The
Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs on his theory of atoll formation was published in May
1842 after more than three years of work, and he then wrote his first "pencil sketch" of his
theory of natural selection. In 1862, In 1862 Fertilization of Orchids gave his first detailed
demonstration of the power of natural selection to explain complex ecological relationships,
making testable predictions. In 1871 he examined human evolution and sexual selection in The
Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in
Man and Animals (1872). He received the Royal medal, Wolaston medal and Copley medal. He
died at Down House on 19 April 1882.
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday was born on Sept. 22, 1791. He was a British physicist and chemist
who is best known for his discoveries of electromagnetic induction and of the laws of
electrolysis. His biggest breakthrough in electricity was his invention of the electric motor.
Faraday also determined the composition of the chlorine clathrate hydrate, which had been
discovered by Humphry Davy in 1810. Faraday married Sarah Barnard (1800–1879) on 12 June
1821.
In 1824, He briefly set up a circuit to study whether a magnetic field could regulate the
flow of a current in an adjacent wire, but he found no such relationship. In 1845, Faraday
discovered that many materials exhibit a weak repulsion from a magnetic field: a phenomenon
he termed diamagnetism. He received the Copley Medal, Royal Medal and Rumford Medal in
appreciation of his services. Faraday died at his house at Hampton Court on 25 August 1867,
aged 75.
Janes Clerk Maxwell
He was born on June 13, 1831, at Edinburgh, Scotland, Scottish physicist best known for
his formulation of electromagnetic theory. He was sent to school at the Edinburgh Academy in
1841. t age 16 he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he read voraciously on all
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subjects and published two more scientific papers. In 1850 he went to the University of
Cambridge, where his exceptional powers began to be recognized.
He is regarded by most modern physicists as the scientist of the 19th century who had
the greatest influence on 20th-century physics, and he is ranked with Sir Isaac
Newton and Albert Einstein for the fundamental nature of his contributions. In 1931, on the
100th anniversary of Maxwell’s birth, Einstein described the change in the conception of reality
in physics that resulted from Maxwell’s work as “the most profound and the most fruitful that
physics has experienced since the time of Newton.”
John Dalton
John Dalton was born in Eaglesfield, England, on September 6, 1766, to a Quaker family.
He had two surviving siblings. Both he and his brother were born color-blind. Dalton's father
earned a modest income as a handloom weaver. After attending a Quaker school in his village
in Cumberland, when Dalton was just 12 years old he started teaching there.
During his early career as a scientist, Dalton also researched color blindness—a topic
with which he was familiar through firsthand experience. He proved his theory to be true when
genetic analysis of his own eye tissue revealed that he was missing the photoreceptor for
perceiving the color green. As a result of his contributions to the understanding of red-green
color blindness, the condition is still often referred to as "Daltonism." In 1803 this scientific
principle officially came to be known as Dalton's Law of Partial Pressures.
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In an article he wrote for the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1803,
Dalton created the first chart of atomic weights. Seeking to expand on his theory, he
readdressed the subject of atomic weight in his book A New System of Chemical Philosophy,
published 1808. In A New System of Chemical Philosophy, Dalton also wrote about his
experiments proving that atoms consistently combine in simple ratios. In 1810 Dalton published
an appendix to A New System of Chemical Philosophy. Dalton served as president of the
Manchester Literary and Philosophical society. In his later life, Dalton continued to teach and
lecture at universities throughout the United Kingdom. Dalton died on the evening of July 26,
1844, at his home in Manchester, England.
In October 1831, Simpson was appointed assistant to the director of the Dispensary, Dr
W.T. Gairdner. Simpson went on to complete his MD thesis on inflammation in 1832. Simpson
made his “Announcement of a New Anaesthetic Agent,” having already successfully utilized
chloroform in minor procedures. Simpson used it in obstetrics for the first time on November 8,
1847. Within a year of Simpson’s introduction of chloroform, surgeons and their patients were
confident in its usage. Chloroform was the anaesthetic of choice for general surgery,
Louis Pasteur
Louis Pasteur was born on December 27, 1822, in Dole, located in the Jura region of
France. He grew up in the town of Arbois, and his father, Jean-Joseph Pasteur, was a tanner and
a sergeant major decorated with the Legion of Honor during the Napoleonic Wars. An average
student, Pasteur was skilled at drawing and painting. He earned his bachelor of arts degree
(1840) and bachelor of science degree (1842) at the Royal College of Besançon and a doctorate
(1847) from the ÉcoleNormale in Paris.Pasteur then spent several years researching and
teaching at Dijon Lycée.
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pasteurization. in 1865, Pasteur helped save the silk industry. He proved that microbes were
attacking healthy silkworm eggs, causing an unknown disease, and that the disease would be
eliminated if the microbes were eliminated.
Pasteur's first vaccine discovery was in 1879, with a disease called chicken cholera. In
1873, Pasteur was elected as an associate member of the Académie de Médecine. In 1882, the
year of his acceptance into the AcadémieFrançaise, he decided to focus his efforts on the
problem of rabies. On July 6, 1885, Pasteur vaccinated Joseph Meister, a 9-year-old boy who
had been bitten by a rabid dog. He was died on September 28, 1895.
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UNIT - IV
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN 20TH CENTURY
Science was advanced dramatically during the 20th century. There were new and radical
developments in the physical, life and human sciences, building on the progress made in the
19th century.The development of post-Newtonian theories in physics, such as special
relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics led to the development of nuclear
weapons. New models of the structure of the atom led to developments in theories of
chemistry and the development of new materials such as nylon and plastics. Advances in
biology led to large increases in food production, as well as the elimination of diseases such
as polio.
A massive amount of new technologies were developed in the 20th century.
Technologies such as electricity, the incandescent light bulb, the automobile and
the phonograph, first developed at the end of the 19th century, were perfected and universally
deployed. The first airplane flight occurred in 1903, and by the end of the century large
airplanes such as the Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 flew thousands of miles in a matter of hours.
The development of the television and computers caused massive changes in the dissemination
of information. In 1905, Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed the Haber process for
making ammonia, a milestone in industrial chemistry with deep consequences in agriculture. By
the mid 20th century, in principle, the integration of physics and chemistry was extensive, with
chemical properties explained as the result of the electronic structure of the atom.
Alfred Nobel
He was Born in Stockholm, Sweden, 1833, his father Immanuel Nobel was an engineer
and businessman in the construction industry, and he experimented with and used explosives
in construction. During the period 1850-52, his father sent him to study in Sweden, France,
Germany and the United states.
In the US he spent time with John Ericsson, who invented the screw propeller and
during the US civil war built the first ironclad warship, called the Monitor. In Paris Nobel met a
chemist named AscanioSobrero, who had invented nitroglycerine. In 1863 Alfred was awarded
his first patent, for "blasting oil" (a mixture of nitroglycerine and black powder (!) that was
more reliable), and soon after he got a patent for a blasting cap (a wood plug filled with black
powder, ignited by a fuse) to detonate the oil. In 1887 Nobel developed what he called
ballistite, sometimes referred to as the "crowning glory" of his research career. A form of
smokeless powder, it quickly replaced black powder in the armories of the world.; He was died
December 10, 1896, San Remo, Italy.
Albert Einstein
Einstein was born on March 14, 1879, in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany. Einstein grew up
in a secular Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer who, with
his brother, founded ElektrotechnischeFabrik J. Einstein &Cie, a Munich-based company that
mass-produced electrical equipment. Einstein attended elementary school at the Luitpold
Gymnasium in Munich. He attended a high school in Aarau, Switzerland helmed by
JostWinteler.
Einstein had four papers published in the Annalen der Physik, one of the best-known
physics journals of the era. Two focused on the photoelectric effect and Brownian motion. The
two others, which outlined E=MC2 and the special theory of relativity, were defining for
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Einstein’s career and the course of the study of physics. Einstein first proposed a special theory
of relativity in 1905 in his paper, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies,” taking physics in
an electrifying new direction. By November 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of
relativity. Einstein considered this theory the culmination of his life research.
In 1921, Einstein won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric
effect, since his ideas on relativity were still considered questionable. He wasn't actually given
the award until the following year due to a bureaucratic ruling, and during his acceptance
speech, he still opted to speak about relativity. In the development of his general theory,
Einstein had held onto the belief that the universe was a fixed, static entity, aka a "cosmological
constant," though his later theories directly contradicted this idea and asserted that the
universe could be in a state of flux. He was died April 18, 1955, Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.A.
His research also included work on elasticity, capillary action of fluids, specific heats of
gases, conduction of heat in crystals, absorption of heat by gases, and piezoelectricity. In 1895,
while experimenting with electric current flow in a partially evacuated glass tube (cathode-ray
tube), Röntgen observed that a nearby piece of barium platinocyanide gave off light when the
tube was in operation. He theorized that when the cathode rays (electrons) struck the glass wall
of the tube, some unknown radiation was formed that traveled across the room, struck the
chemical, and caused the fluorescence. Further investigation revealed that paper, wood, and
aluminum, among other materials, are transparent to this new form of radiation. He found that
it affected photographic plates, and, since it did not noticeably exhibit any properties of light,
such as reflection or refraction, he mistakenly thought the rays were unrelated to light. In view
of its uncertain nature, he called the phenomenon X-radiation, though it also became known as
Röntgen radiation. He took the first X-ray photographs, of the interiors of metal objects and of
the bones in his wife’s hand.
In 1901, his discovery of X-rays, which heralded the age of modern physics and
revolutionized diagnostic medicine. X-radiation or gamma radiation, the amount that will
produce, under normal conditions of pressure, temperature, and humidity, in 1 kg (2.2 lbs) of
air, an amount of positive or negative ionization equal to 2.58 × 10 −4 coulomb. It is named for
the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen.The roentgen or röntgen (symbol R) is a legacy
unit of measurement for the exposure of X-rays and gamma rays, and is defined as the electric
charge freed by such radiation in a specified volume of air divided by the mass of that air
(coulomb per kilogram). In 1928, it was adopted as the first international measurement
quantity for ionising radiation to be defined for radiation protection, as it was then the most
easily replicated method of measuring air ionization by using ion chambers. He was died on
February 10, 1923
Marie Curie
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Marie Curie, born Maria Salomea, was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist
who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. at the age of 16 she won a gold medal on
completion of her secondary education at the Russian lycée. Because her father, a teacher of
mathematics and physics, lost his savings through bad investment, she had to take work as a
teacher and, at the same time, took part clandestinely in the nationalist “free university,”
reading in Polish to women workers. At the age of 18 she took a post as governess, where she
suffered an unhappy love affair. From her earnings she was able to finance her sister
Bronisława’s medical studies in Paris, with the understanding that Bronisława would in turn
later help her to get an education.
In 1891 Skłodowska went to Paris and, now using the name Marie, began to follow the
lectures of Paul Appel, Gabriel Lippmann, and Edmond Bouty at the Sorbonne. There she met
physicists who were already well known—Jean Perrin, Charles Maurain, and Aimé Cotton.
Skłodowska worked far into the night in her student-quarters garret and virtually lived on bread
and butter and tea. She came first in the licence of physical sciences in 1893. She began to work
in Lippmann’s research laboratory and in 1894 was placed second in the licence of
mathematical sciences. It was in the spring of that year that she met Pierre Curie. Their
marriage (July 25, 1895) marked the start of a partnership that was soon to achieve results of
world significance, in particular the discovery of polonium (so called by Marie in honour of her
native land) in the summer of 1898.
Pierre Curie then joined her in the work that she had undertaken to resolve this problem
and that led to the discovery of the new elements, polonium and radium. While Pierre Curie
devoted himself chiefly to the physical study of the new radiations, Marie Curie struggled to
obtain pure radium in the metallic state—achieved with the help of the chemist André-Louis
Debierne, one of Pierre Curie’s pupils. On the results of this research, Marie Curie received her
doctorate of science in June 1903 and, with Pierre, was awarded the Davy Medal of the Royal
Society. Also in 1903 they shared with Becquerel the Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of
radioactivity. On May 13, 1906, she was appointed to the professorship that had been left
vacant on her husband’s death; she was the first woman to teach in the Sorbonne. In 1908 she
became titular professor, and in 1910 her fundamental treatise on radioactivity was published.
In 1911 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, for the isolation of pure radium. In
1914 she saw the completion of the building of the laboratories of the Radium Institute (Institut
du Radium) at the University of Paris. Throughout World War I, Marie Curie, with the help of
her daughter Irène, devoted herself to the development of the use of X-radiography. She was
made a member of the International Commission on Intellectual Co-operation by the Council of
the League of Nations. In addition, she had the satisfaction of seeing the development of the
Curie Foundation in Paris and the inauguration in 1932 in Warsaw of the Radium Institute, of
which her sister Bronisława became director. She was died on July 4, 1934, near Sallanches,
France.
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Marconi
Marconi’s father was Italian and his mother Irish. Educated first in Bologna and later in
Florence, Marconi then went to the technical school in Leghorn, where, in studying physics, he
had every opportunity for investigating electromagnetic wave technique, following the earlier
mathematical work of James Clerk Maxwell and the experiments of Heinrich Hertz, who first
produced and transmitted radio waves, and Sir Oliver Lodge, who conducted research on
lightning and electricity.
In 1894 Marconi began experimenting at his father’s estate near Bologna, using
comparatively crude apparatuses: an induction coil for increasing voltages, with a spark
discharger controlled by a Morse key at the sending end and a simple coherer (a device
designed to detect radio waves) at the receiver. After preliminary experiments over a short
distance, he first improved the coherer; then, by systematic tests, he showed that the range of
signaling was increased by using a vertical aerial with a metal plate or cylinder at the top of a
pole connected to a similar plate on the ground. The range of signaling was thus increased to
about 2.4 km (1.5 miles), enough to convince Marconi of the potentialities of this new system
of communication. During this period he also conducted simple experiments with reflectors
around the aerial to concentrate the radiated electrical energy into a beam instead of spreading
it in all directions.
In 1902 also, Marconi patented the magnetic detector in which the magnetization in a
moving band of iron wires is changed by the arrival of a signal causing a click in the telephone
receiver connected to it. During the ensuing three years, he also developed and patented the
horizontal directional aerial. Both of these devices improved the efficiency of the
communication system. In 1910 he received messages at Buenos Aires from Clifden
in Ireland over a distance of approximately 9,650 km (6,000 miles), using a wavelength of about
8,000 metres (5 miles). Two years later Marconi introduced further innovations that so
improved transmission and reception that important long-distance stations could be
established. This increased efficiency allowed Marconi to send the first radio message from
England to Australia in September 1918. Marconi received many honours and several honorary
degrees. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics (1909) for the development of wireless
telegraphy; sent as plenipotentiary delegate to the peace conference in Paris (1919), in which
capacity he signed the peace treaties with Austria and with Bulgaria; created marchese and
nominated to the Italian senate (1929); and chosen president of the Royal Italian Academy
(1930). He was died on July 20, 1937, Rome.
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Telegraph
Telegraph, any device or system that allows the transmission of information by coded
signal over distance. The word telegraph is derived from the Greek words tele, meaning
“distant,” and graphein, meaning “to write.” It came into use toward the end of the 18th
century to describe an optical semaphore system developed in France. However, many types of
telegraphic communication have been employed since before recorded history.
The earliest methods of communication at a distance made use of such media as smoke,
fire, drums, and reflected rays of the Sun. Ancient signaling systems, although sometimes quite
extensive and sophisticated as in China, were generally not capable of transmitting arbitrary
text messages. Visual signals given by flags and torches were used for short-range
communication and continued to be utilized well into the 20th century, when the two-
flag semaphore system was widely used, particularly by the world’s navies. Many telegraphic
systems have been used over the centuries, but the term is most often understood to refer to
the electric telegraph, which was developed in the mid-19th century and for more than 100
years was the principal means of transmitting printed information by wire or radio wave.
In Telegraph, the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a
physical exchange of an object bearing the message.Thus flag semaphore is a method of
telegraphy, whereas pigeon post is not.In 1837 he was granted a patent on an electromagnetic
telegraph. Morse’s original transmitter incorporated a device called a portarule, which
employed molded type with built-in dots and dashes. In 1843 Morse obtained financial support
from the U.S. government to build a demonstration telegraph system 60 km (35 miles) long
between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Md. Wires were attached by glass insulators to poles
alongside a railroad. The system was completed and public use initiated on May 24, 1844, with
transmission of the message, “What hath God wrought!”
Telephone
Telephone, an instrument designed for the simultaneous transmission and reception of
the human voice. The telephone is inexpensive, is simple to operate, and offers its users an
immediate, personal type of communication that cannot be obtained through any other
medium.The word telephone, from the Greek roots tēle, “far,” and phonē, “sound,” was applied
as early as the late 17th century to the string telephone familiar to children, and it was later
used to refer to the megaphone and the speaking tube, but in modern usage it refers solely to
electrical devices derived from the inventions of Alexander Graham Bell and others.
Television
Television plays a critical role in the public’s understanding of new developments in
science. Once they leave formal education, most Americans rely on television to keep them
informed about science and technology.
The word "television," which means "seeing at a distance," was first used to describe
the futuristic technology at the 1900 World's Fair by Russian scientist ConstantinPerskyi. It
combined two root words of different origins: the Greek word "tele," meaning "distant," and
the Latin word "visio," meaning "sight." Paul Nipkow, a German engineer who invented the
scanning disk.
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Nipkow’s 1884 patent for an ElektrischesTelescop was based on a simple rotating disk
perforated with an inward-spiraling sequence of holes. It would be placed so that it blocked
reflected light from the subject. As the disk rotated, the outermost hole would move across the
scene, letting through light from the first “line” of the picture. The next hole would do the same
thing slightly lower, and so on. One complete revolution of the disk would provide a complete
picture, or “scan,” of the subject. This concept was eventually used by John Logie
Baird in Britain (and Charles Francis Jenkins in the United States to build the world’s first
successful televisions. The question of priority depends on one’s definition of television. In 1922
Jenkins sent a still picture by radio waves, but the first true television success, the transmission
of a live human face, was achieved by Baird in 1925
Television (TV),The electronic delivery of moving images and sound from a source to
a receiver. By extending the senses of vision and hearing beyond the limits of physical distance,
television has had a considerable influence on society. Conceived in the early 20th century as a
possible medium for education and interpersonal communication, it became by mid-century a
vibrant broadcast medium, using the model of broadcast radio to bring news and
entertainment to people all over the world. Television is now delivered in a variety of ways:
“over the air” by terrestrial radio waves (traditional broadcast TV); along coaxial cables (cable
TV); reflected off of satellites held in geostationary Earth orbit (direct broadcast satellite, or
DBS, TV); streamed through the Internet; and recorded optically on digital video discs (DVDs)
and Blu-ray discs.
Computers
The earliest known calculating device is probably the abacus. It dates back at least to
1100 BCE and is still in use today, particularly in Asia. About 1632 an English clergyman and
mathematician named William Oughtred built the first slide rule, drawing on Napier’s ideas.
The first calculator or adding machine to be produced in any quantity and actually used was the
Pascaline, or Arithmetic Machine, designed and built by the French mathematician-
philosopher Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1644. in 1833, he had conceived of something far
more revolutionary: a general-purpose computing machine called the Analytical Engine. In 1930
an engineer named Vannevar Bush at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
developed the first modern analog computer.
Radars
Serious developmental work on radar began in the 1930s, but the basic idea of radar
had its origins in the classical experiments on electromagnetic radiation conducted by German
physicist Heinrich Hertz during the late 1880s. Hertz set out to verify experimentally the earlier
theoretical work of Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell had formulated the general
equations of the electromagnetic field, determining that both light and radio waves are
examples of electromagnetic waves governed by the same fundamental laws but having widely
different frequencies. Maxwell’s work led to the conclusion that radio waves can be reflected
from metallic objects and refracted by a dielectric medium, just as light waves can. Hertz
demonstrated these properties in 1888, using radio waves at a wavelength of 66 cm (which
corresponds to a frequency of about 455 MHz).
Serious developmental work on radar began in the 1930s, but the basic idea of radar
had its origins in the classical experiments on electromagnetic radiation conducted by German
physicist Heinrich Hertz during the late 1880s. Hertz set out to verify experimentally the earlier
theoretical work of Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Maxwell had formulated the general
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equations of the electromagnetic field, determining that both light and radio waves are
examples of electromagnetic waves governed by the same fundamental laws but having widely
different frequencies. Maxwell’s work led to the conclusion that radio waves can be reflected
from metallic objects and refracted by a dielectric medium, just as light waves can. Hertz
demonstrated these properties in 1888, using radio waves at a wavelength of 66 cm (which
corresponds to a frequency of about 455 MHz).
The first ballistic missile defense radars were conceived and developed in the mid-1950s
and 1960s. Advances in digital technology in the first decade of the 21st century sparked
further improvement in signal and data processing, with the goal of developing (almost) all-
digital phased-array radars. High-power transmitters became available for radar application in
the millimetre-wave portion of the spectrum (typically 94 GHz), with average powers 100 to
1,000 times greater than previously.
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UNIT - V
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN MODERN INDIA
The Trigonometrical Survey of Peninsular India was started in 1800 with second-hand
instruments bought within the country. Expectedly, its history is also the history of the
entrenchment of the British in India. In 1817 the Mahrattas were finally crushed. On 1st January
1818 the survey was renamed the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India (GTS) and extended to
cover the whole country. It even surreptitiously covered trans-Himalayan region. The GTS came
to its own in 1830 under Lt. Col. Sir George Everest (1790-1866) who was also appointed the
Surveyor- General. The GTS fixed with great accuracy the longitude and latitude of a large
number of places. The details were then filled in by the Topographical and Revenue Surveys. In
1878 the three were merged under the name Survey of India. Uniformly accurate data from
such a huge landmass as India led to the important geodesical theory of isostasy by Archdeacon
John Henry Pratt (1808-71) and to a mathematical model of the earth, known as Everest geoids.
in 1785 a professionally trained surveyor-astronomer Michael Topping (1747-96) was brought
from England, on free passage and equipped with his instruments. Since his work required a
reference meridian, an Astronomical Observatory was set up at Madras in 1790.
Systematic study of botany in India was pioneered by John Gerald Koenig, a native of
the Baltic province of Courland, who came to the Danish settlement at Tranquebar near
Madras. Koenig was a pupil of the celebrated Linnaes and at once initiated many enthusiasts
into botanical studies. The workers included Sir William Jones, the well-known oriental scholar,
who in 1784 established Asiatic Society of Calcutta. In 1891 Botanical Survey of India was
constituted. The Tatas set up a technical university at Bangalore, calling it Indian Institute of
Scienc. The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) was founded on 26 September
1942, by a resolution of the then Central Legislative Assembly. It is funded mainly by the India
Ministry of Science and Technology and it is one of the world‘s largest publicly funded (R&D)
organizations, having linkages to academia, other R&D organizations and industry.
Space Research
The space research activities were initiated in India during the early 1960’s, when
applications using satellites were in experimental stages even in the United States. With the live
transmission of Tokyo Olympic Games across the Pacific by the American Satellite ‘Syncom-3’
demonstrating the power of communication satellites, Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the founding father
of Indian space programme, quickly recognized the benefits of space technologies for India.
As a first step, the Department of Atomic Energy formed the INCOSPAR (Indian National
Committee for Space Research) under the leadership of Dr. Sarabhai and Dr. Ramanathan in
1962. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) was later formed on August 15, 1969. The
prime objective of ISRO is to develop space technology and its application to various national
needs. It is one of the six largest space agencies in the world. The Department of Space (DOS)
and the Space Commission were set up in 1972 and ISRO was brought under DOS on June 1,
1972.
Since inception, the Indian space programme has been orchestrated well and had three
distinct elements such as, satellites for communication and remote sensing, the space
transportation system and application programmes. Two majot operational systems have been
established – the Indian National Satellite (INSAT) for telecommunication, television
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broadcasting, and meteorological services and the Indian Remote Sensing Satellite (IRS) for
monitoring and management of natural resources and Disaster Management Support.
1. Indian Space Programme began at Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS)
located at Thumba near Thiruvanathapuram. Thumba was selected for being rocket
launching station because geomagnetic equator of the earth passes over Thumba. The
geomagnetic equator of the earth passes over Thumba.
2. On November 21, 1963, the first sounding rocket was launched from TERLS. The first
rocket, a Nike-Apache was procured from the US. A sounding rocket is a rocket, which is
intended for assessing the physical parameters of the upper atmosphere.
3. The Satellite Telecommunication Earth Station was set up at Ahmedabad on January 1,
1967.
4. India’s first indigenous sounding rocket, RH-75, was launched on November 20, 1967.
5. Aryabhata - First Indian Satellite was launched on April 19, 1975. It was launched from
the former Soviet Union. It provided India with the basis of learning satellite technology
and designing.
6. During January 1, 1977 — January 1, 1979, Satellite Telecommunication Experiments
Project (STEP), a joint project of ISRO-and Post and Telegraphs Department (P&T) using
the Franco-German Symphonie satellite was taken up. Conceived as a sequel to SITE
which focused on Television, STEP was for telecommunication experiments.
7. Bhaskara-I - an experimental satellite for earth observations was launched on June 7,
1979.
8. Indian National Satellite system (INSAT)-1A was launched on April 10, 1982. This system
was for the communication, broadcasting and meteorology.
9. Launch of first operational Indian Remote Sensing Satellite, IRS-1A happened on March
17, 1988.
10. The first developmental launch of Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV)-D1
with GSAT-1 on board took off from Sriharikota on April 18, 2001. It was developed
keeping in mind the heavier and more demanding Geosynchronous communication
satellites.
11. PSLV-C11 successfully launches CHANDRAYAAN-1 from Sriharikota on October 22, 2008.
Chandrayaan-1 is a scientific investigation – by spacecraft – of the Moon. The name
Chandrayaan means “Chandra- Moon, Yaan-vehicle”, –in Indian languages (Sanskrit and
Hindi) , – the lunar spacecraft. Chandrayaan-1 is the first Indian planetary science and
exploration mission. Chandrayaan-1 was operational for 312 days till August 28, 2009.
12. November 5, 2013 - PSLV - C25 successfully launches Mars Orbiter Mission (Mangalyaan)
Spacecraft from Sriharikota.
13. Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV MkIII-M1 rocket, carrying Chandrayaan-2
spacecraft was launched from the SatishDhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota in Andhra
Pradesh on July 22, 2019. Chandrayaan-2 is India's second mission to the moon. It
comprises a fully indigenous Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). The Rover
Pragyan is housed inside Vikram lander. Chandrayaan-2 has several science payloads to
facilitate a more detailed understanding of the origin and evolution of the Moon.
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According to the Resolution constituting the AEC, the Secretary to the Government of India in
the Department of Atomic Energy is ex-officio Chairman of the Commission. The other
Members of the AEC are appointed for each calendar year on the recommendation of the
Chairman, AEC and after approval by the Prime Minster.
The Department of Defence R&D executes various R&D programmes and projects
through a network of 49 laboratories of the DRDO located all over India and a Centre for
Military Airworthiness and Certification (CEMILAC). It also administers the Aeronautical
Development Agency (ADA), a society funded by the Department, which is engaged in design
and development of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). These laboratories and establishments
execute programmes and projects in diverse fields of aeronautics, armaments, missiles, combat
vehicles, electronics and instrumentation, advanced computing and networking, engineering
systems, agriculture and life sciences, advanced materials and composites and Naval R&D. They
also conduct specialized training programmes in these areas. The programmes are carried out
by a workforce of about 30,000 including more than 6,000 scientists and engineers, supported
by a budget of the order of Rs. 30,000 million.
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political leader. Bose dedicated his book Plant Autographs and their Revelation (1927) to Abala
Devi with the note, To my wife, who has stood by me in all my struggles.
Scientific Experiment
When Bose first joined the Presidency College, there was no laboratory worth the name.
e he carried out experiments on refraction, diffraction, and polarization. Bose would stay on in
the laboratory after the classes were over and carry on experiments. He met the expenses for
the experiments himself. He even fabricated the equipment he needed by sheer ingenuity. The
experiments performed in the make shift laboratory finally resulted in the invention of a device
for producing electromagnetic waves.
In November 1894, Bose gave the first public demonstration of wireless transmission
using electromagnetic waves to ring a bell and to explode a small charge of gunpowder from a
distance. He used microwaves with wavelengths in the millimeter range, not radio waves. It
was described in many textbooks of this period by J. J. Thomson and Poincare. The Daily
Chronicle (England) reported, the inventor has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile
and herein lies the first and obvious and exceedingly valuable application of this new
theoretical marvel. Later, Bose developed the use of Galena crystals for making receivers, both
for short wavelength radio waves and for white and ultraviolet light. His pioneering work in the
field was recognized by his peers. Sir Neville Mott, who won the Nobel Prize in 1977 for his
contributions to solid state electronics, went on record stating that, J.C. Bose was at least sixty
years ahead of his time. In fact, he had anticipated the existence of P-type and N-type semi-
conductors. Bose‘s first paper published in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in
May 1895, deals with the polarization of electric waves by double refraction.In 1896, he was
conferred D. Sc. by London University for his thesis on Measurements of Electric Rays, Bose
went to England in 1897, where he not only repeated his demonstrations successfully but also
speculated on the existence of electromagnetic radiation from the sun. Two years later, Bose
unveiled his invention of the mercury coherer with the telephone detector. Bose devoted a
great deal of attention to the peculiar behaviour of his coherer, which consisted of a number of
contacts between metal filings whose resistance altered under the impact of electric radiation.
Detailed investigation led him to the view that this coherer effect was characteristic of a large
class of compounds, like selenium, iron oxides, etc.
In fact, Bose can be considered a pioneer in the field of investigation of the properties
of photoconductivity and contact rectification shown by this class of semi-conductors. His
subsequent study of the fatigue phenomena exhibited by these substances led Bose to
postulate his theory of the similarity of response in the living and the non-living. He found that
the sensitivity of the coherer decreased when it was used for a long period -it became tired.
When he gave the device some rest, it regained its sensitivity which, in his view, indicated that
metals had feelings and memory.
During 1897-1900, Bose turned his interest to comparative physiology, plant physiology
in particular. The main focus of his investigations was to establish that all the characteristics of
response exhibited by animal tissues are equally exhibited by plant tissues. In 1901, Bose
submitted to the Royal Society a preliminary note on the Electric Response of Inorganic
Substances, in which he showed how he had obtained strong electric response from plants to
mechanical stimuli. However, the paper was not published due to the opposition of Sir John
Burdon Sanderson, the leading electro-physiologist of the time. In 1904, Bose submitted a
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series of papers, once again to the Royal Society, showing the similarities of both the electric
and mechanical responses of plants and animals. But these papers too met the same fate.
His interest in physiology gave an impetus to his inventive genius. For obtaining the
records of mechanical response of plant tissues, he first introduced the optical lever in plant
physiology to magnify and photographically record the minute movements of plants. He
perfected the resonant recorder that enabled him to determine with remarkable accuracy,
within a thousandth part of a second, the latent period of response of the touch-me-not plant,
Mimosa pudica. He also devised the oscillating recorder for making minute lateral leaflets of
the telegraphic plant automatically record their pulsating movements. He even took up the
problem of recording micrographic growth movements of plants by devising the crescograph.
With this instrument, he obtained a magnification of 10,000 times, and was able to record
automatically the elongation growth of plant tissues and their modifications through various
external stimuli. Later, he perfected his magnetic crescograph obtaining a magnification from
one to ten million times. A demonstration of the crescograph at the University College of
London on April 23, 1920 led several leading scientists to state in The Times: We are satisfied
that the growth of plant tissues is correctly recorded by this instrument, and at a magnification
from one million to ten million times.
P.CHANDRA ROY
Acharya Sir Prafulla Chandra Ray (2 August 1861 – 16 June 1944) was a Bengali chemist,
educationist, historian, industrialist and philanthropist. Prafulla Chandra Raychowdhary was
born in the village of Raruli-Katipara, then in the Jessore District (subsequently in the Khulna
District), which was then situated in the eastern portion of the Bengal Presidency of British
India (now in present-day Bangladesh). He was the third child and son of Harish Chandra
Raychowdhury (d. 1893), a moderately wealthy Kayasthazamindar (landed proprietor) and his
wife Bhubanmohini Devi (d. 1904), the daughter of a local taluqdar. Ray was one of seven
siblings, having four brothers – Jnanendra Chandra, NaliniKanta, Purna Chandra and Buddha
Dev – and two sisters, Indumati and Belamati, both born after their brothers; of Ray's siblings,
all except Buddha Dev and Belamati survived to adulthood. Ray's great-grandfather Maniklal
had been a dewan under the British East India Company's district collector of Krishnanagar and
Jessore, and had amassed considerable wealth in the service of the Company. After succeeding
to his father's post, Ray's grandfather Anandlal, a progressive man, sent his son Harish Chandra
to receive a modern education at Krishnagar Government College. At the college, Harish
Chandra received a thorough grounding in English, Sanskrit and Persian, though he was
ultimately forced to end his studies to help support his family. Liberal and cultured, Harish
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In 1886, Prior to Ray's taking up the problem, in 1886, Percival Spencer Umfreville Pickering
and Emily Aston had concluded in their paper that double-double and higher-order sulfate salts
did not exist as definite structures, deeming Vohl's experimental findings inexplicable. Prafulla
Chandra returned to India in the first week of August 1888 and subsequently joined Presidency
College, Calcutta as temporary Assistant Professor of Chemistry in 1889. In 1896, he published a
paper on preparation of a new stable chemical compound: mercurousnitrit. In 1902, he
published the first volume of A History of Hindu Chemistry from the Earliest Times to the
Middle of Sixteenth Century. Prafulla Chandra retired from the Presidency College in 1916, and
joined the Calcutta University College of Science.
SrinivasaRamanujan(1887-1920)
SrinivasaAiyangarRamanujan was born in Erode, in Tamil Nadu, on December 22, 1887.
His father worked as a petty clerk in a cloth factory. After attending primary school in
Kumbhakonam, he entered the Town High School in 1898. From early childhood it was evident
that he was a prodigy and at the age of 13, he had already plunged into serious arithmetic and
geometry. The turning point in his life came when he chanced upon the book Synopsis of
Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics, by George Shoobridge Carr. The book
contained theorems, formulae and short mathematical proofs. It also contained an index to
papers on pure mathematics published in the European journals of learned societies during the
first half of the nineteenth century. It was this book that triggered the mathematical genius in
him. He discovered the relationship between circular and exponential functions. From that
moment onwards, Ramanujan‘s mind was flooded with mathematical ideas and so many of
them that he would solve the problems on loose sheets of paper and jot down the results in his
notebooks. The notebooks would later become famous as Ramanujan‘s frayed notebooks. Even
today mathematicians are studying them to prove or disprove those results.
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He received a prize fellowship worth 250 pounds a year for six years with no duties or
conditions attached. But Ramanujan was not destined to live long enough to enjoy either fame
or prosperity. His health began to fail. Tuberculosis had begun devouring him. He spent a long
time in hospitals. His mind, however remained razor sharp. Once, Hardy visiting him in the
hospital mentioned that the number of the taxi he had come in was 1729, and that he thought
it was rather a dull number. From his sick bed, Ramanujan protested, No, Hardy, it is a very
interesting number. It is the smallest number that can be expressed in two different ways as
the sum of two cubes. As usual he was right because 1729 can be written as 103+93 and also as
123+13. Failing health forced Ramanujan to return to India. Hardy, his mentor wrote, He will
return to India with a scientific standing and reputation such as no Indian has enjoyed before,
and I am confident that India will regard him as the treasure he is. His natural simplicity and
modesty has never been affected in the least by success-indeed all that is wanted is to get him
to realize he really is a success.
Last days
His health may have deserted him but his passion for mathematics did not diminish in
the slightest. Even on his deathbed he continued to play with numbers. It was a touching sight
to see him lying in bed solving mathematical problems while his wife fed him rice balls with her
own hands. On April 26, 1920, Ramanujan died, aged 32 years, at Chetpet in Madras. Although
Ramanujan had taken his notebooks with him to Cambridge, he had no time to delve deep into
them. The 600 formulae he jotted down on loose sheets of paper during that one year he had
in India after his return from Cambridge, are in the book Lost Note Book brought out by
NarosaPublishing House in 1987, on the occasion of Ramanujan‘s birth centenary. The
notebooks were found by George Andrews of Pennsylvania State University in the estate of
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G.N. Watson in the spring of 1976. 180 When G. H. Hardy, was asked to rate the top
mathematicians of his time on a scale of 100, he gave himself 25 marks, Littlewood got 30,
Hillbert got 80, while Ramanujan got 100 upon 100. Such was the reputation that Ramanujan
enjoyed among mathematicians of his time. In 1984, over hundred mathematicians and
scientists contributed money for a bust sculpted by Paul Granlund, that was later handed over
to his wife. Ramanujan left behind 4,000 original theorems, despite his lack of formal education
and a short life span.
ChandrasekharaVenkataRaman(1888-1970)
Raman was born on November 7,1888, in the town of Tiruchirapalli on the bank of river
Cauvery, into a family of traditional agriculturists. His father named ChandrasekharaAyyar, was
a scholar in physics and mathematics took to teaching in the local school. He loved music.
Raman too, grew up in an atmosphere steeped in music, Sanskrit literature and science. He
spent in Vishakhapatnam at the high school and in college. He stood first in every class and his
genius became evident. After his intermediate examination, he moved to Madras in 1903, and
joined the B.A. class in Presidency College. In the year 1905, he was the only student who
passed in the first class, also winning a gold medal in physics.
On March 16,1928, Raman delivered an address to the newly formed South Indian
Science Association at Bangalore, under the title: A New Radiation. He also acknowledged with
affection . Investigations, making use of the Raman Effect, began in many countries. During the
first twelve years after its discovery, about 1,800 research papers were published on various
aspects of it and about 2,500 chemical compounds were studied.
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The Raman Effect was perceived as one of the greatest discoveries of the third decade
of the twentieth century. In 1929, the British Government conferred knighthood on Raman.
And finally, in 1930, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. No Indian or Asian had received
the Prize for Physics till then. In 1933, Raman was appointed Director of the Tata Institute (later
renamed Indian Institute of Science) at Bangalore. Under his able guidance and inspiration the
Institute soon became famous for the study of crystals. In order to encourage scientific research
in India, Raman established the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1934, drawing in distinguished
and active scientists from various parts of India as its foundation fellows. The Government of
the princely state of Mysore granted 24 acres of land free of cost to promote the activities of
the Academy. in 1948 to establish a Research Institute at Hebbal, Bangalore. He gave away all
his property to the Institute that later came to be known as the Raman Research Institute. In
1954, Raman was bestowed with the greatest honour the Government of India confers on an
Indian-the Bharat Ratna. Every year he used to deliver a popular science lecture on the
occasion of Gandhi Jayanti. On October 2,1970, he spoke on the new theories about hearing
and the eardrum. This was his last lecture. After a short illness he passed away on November
21, 1970.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
He was born on October 19, 1910, Lahore. He was an Indian-born
American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for
key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of
massive stars.Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir ChandrasekharaVenkata Raman, who won
the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930. Chandrasekhar was educated at Presidency College, at
the University of Madras, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. From 1933 to 1936 he held a
position at Trinity.
By the early 1930s, scientists had concluded that, after converting all of
their hydrogen to helium, stars lose energy and contract under the influence of their
own gravity. These stars, known as white dwarf stars, contract to about the size of Earth, and
the electrons and nuclei of their constituent atoms are compressed to a state of extremely high
density. Chandrasekhar determined what is known as the Chandrasekhar limit—that a star
having a mass more than 1.44 times that of the Sun does not form a white dwarf but instead
continues to collapse, blows off its gaseous envelope in a supernova explosion, and becomes
a neutron star. An even more massive star continues to collapse and becomes a black hole.
These calculations contributed to the eventual understanding of supernovas, neutron stars, and
black holes. Chandrasekhar joined the staff of the University of Chicago, rising from assistant
professor of astrophysics (1938) to Morton D. Hull distinguished service professor of
astrophysics (1952), and became a U.S. citizen in 1953.
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His original name, AvulPakirJainulabdeen Abdul Kalam. He was born on October 15,
1931, Rameswaram. He was an Indian scientist and politician who played a leading role in the
development of India’s missile and nuclear weapons programs. He was president of India from
2002 to 2007. Kalam earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from the Madras Institute of
Technology and in 1958 joined the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
He soon moved to the Indian Space Research Organisation, where he was project director of
the SLV-III, India’s first indigenously designed and produced satellite launch vehicle. Rejoining
DRDO in 1982, Kalam planned the program that produced a number of successful missiles,
which helped earned him the nickname “Missile Man.”
From 1992 to 1997 Kalam was scientific adviser to the defense minister, and he later
served as principal scientific adviser (1999–2001) to the government with the rank of cabinet
minister. His prominent role in the country’s 1998 nuclear weapons tests established Kalam as a
national hero, although the tests caused great concern in the international community. In 1998
Kalam put forward a countrywide plan called Technology Vision 2020, which he described as a
road map for transforming India from a less-developed to a developed society in 20 years. The
plan called for, among other measures, increasing agricultural productivity,
emphasizing technology as a vehicle for economic growth, and widening access to health care
and education.
In 2002 India’s ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) put forward Kalam to succeed
outgoing President Kocheril Raman Narayanan. Kalam was nominated by the Hindu nationalist
(Hindutva) NDA even though he was Muslim, and his stature and popular appeal were such that
even the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress, also proposed his candidacy.
Kalam easily won the election and was sworn in as India’s 11th president, a largely ceremonial
post, in July 2002. He remained committed to using science and technology to transform India
into a developed country. Kalam wrote several books, including an autobiography, Wings of
Fire (1999). Among his numerous awards were two of the country’s highest honours, the
Padma Vibhushan (1990) and the Bharat Ratna (1997). He was died on July 27, 2015 at Shillong.
M.S. Swaminathan
He was born on August 7, 1925, Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu, India. He was an Indian
geneticist and international administrator, renowned for his leading role in India’s “Green
Revolution,” a program under which high-yield varieties of wheat and rice seedlings were
planted in the fields of poor farmers.Swaminathan, the son of a surgeon, was educated in India
and at the University of Cambridge (Ph.D., 1952) as a geneticist. During the next two decades
he held a number of research and administrative positions (mostly in the Indian civil service).
While working in those positions, he helped introduce Mexican semidwarf wheat plants to
Indian fields and helped to bring about greater acceptance of modern farming methods. From
1972 to 1979 he was director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, and he was
principal secretary of the Indian ministry of agriculture and irrigation from 1979 to 1980. He
served as director general of the International Rice Research Institute (1982–88) and as
president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (1984–
90).
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