The Physicist

"Sir, I have ventured to send you the accompanying article for your perusal and opinion. I am anxious to know what you think of it. You will see that I have tried to deduce the coefficient 8πν²/c³ in Planck's Law independent of classical electrodynamics, only assuming that the ultimate elementary region in the phase-space has the content h³. I do not know sufficient German to translate the paper. If you think the paper worth publication I shall be grateful if you arrange for its publication in Zeitschrift für Physik. Though a complete stranger to you, I do not feel any hesitation in making such a request. Because we are all your pupils though profiting only by your teachings through your writings. I do not know whether you still remember that somebody from Calcutta asked your permission to translate your papers on Relativity in English. You acceded to the request. The book has since been published. I was the one who translated your paper on Generalised Relativity."

 Can you tell me who wrote this one to whom? Wait don't scroll down. A logical answer would be Einstein for "Relativity" but who wrote this one from 'Culcutta'? Well you might go to the time when Einstein was alive and think about physicists from the Bengal. This was one of the greatest physicist Satyendranath Bose. 

While presenting a lecture at the University of Dhaka on the theory of radiation and the ultraviolet catastrophe, Bose intended to show his students that the contemporary theory was inadequate, because it predicted results not in accordance with experimental results.

In the process of describing this discrepancy, Bose for the first time took the position that the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution would not be true for microscopic particles, where fluctuations due to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle will be significant. Thus he stressed the probability of finding particles in the phase space, each state having volume h³, and discarding the distinct position and momentum of the particles.

Bose adapted this lecture into a short article called "Planck's Law and the Hypothesis of Light Quanta" and sent it to Albert Einstein with the above letter.

Today when I just woke up in morning and switch on the mobile I saw Google is celebrating the birthday of Indian physicist and mathematician Satyendranath Bose. 

Have you ever encountered these words "You have to score 110 marks out of 100 in mathematics"? Yes, Satyendranath was the one who got that one for his extraordinary talents in mathematics. He created the record as the highest marks 92% in M.Sc and his friend Meghnath took the second place.

He first published research papper The Influence of the Finite Volume of Molecules on the Equation of State in the Philosophical Magazine of London in 1918. With the collaboration with Saha he translated the General theory of Relativity from its original German into English although publisher objected against it but Einstein graciously gave the permission. Einstein also translated the above theory into German and published it Zeitschrift für Physik . With the collaboration with Einstein the Bose-Einstein grew up. Bose-Einstein statistics came to be known as BOSONS after the Bose. Unlike the other sub-atomic particles, an unlimited number of bosons may occupy the same state at the same time. Bosons tend to congregate together at the same lowest energy state, forming a Bose-Einstein condensate.

Once P.A.M Dirac came to Kolkata with his wife. They share same car with Satyendranath. The front seat, which Bose occupied along with the driver, did not have much room; nevertheless Bose asked some of his students to get in. Dirac, a little surprised, asked if it wasn’t too crowded. Bose looked back and said in disarming fashion, “We believe in Bose statistics,” Dirac explained to his wife, “In Bose statistics things crowd together.”

Sources I used:

Wikipedia

Google for the Google doodle