The last quarter of every year is the season of Nobel Prizes — inarguably the most prestigious award in the world. Beginning October, the Nobel Prizes of the year start getting announced, in the run up to the actual ceremony on 10 December, to mark the death anniversary of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the Swedish scientist, businessman and philanthropist, who established the prizes.
In the domain of sciences, the prizes are awarded in the fields of physics, chemistry, and medicine or physiological sciences. Despite numerous nominations since 1901, when the prizes were first given, only eight Indians have eventually been awarded the accolade. And that number is limited to four in the field of science.
Of the four scientists, only CV Raman remains the only Indian to win a science Nobel, which he did for Chemistry in 1930. The other three have been: Har Gobind Khorana, Indian-born American scientist, who won for Medicine in 1968; Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Indian-born American theoretical physicist, who won in 1983; and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, another Indian-born British-American scientist who won for Chemistry in 2009.
It is unfortunate that many Indian geniuses, who were nominated to the prestigious award, eventually did not win the prize. Here, we recall those scientists who fell short of ultimate glory in the world of science.
1. Meghnad Saha (1893-1956)
Pioneer astrophysicist Meghnad Saha introduced the world to Thermal Ionisation Equation (better known as the Saha Equation) which demonstrated the relationship between an element’s ionisation state to the temperature and pressure.
Born in Dhaka in British India, Saha earned the Premchand Roychand Scholarship in 1919 for his dissertation on ‘Harvard Classification of Stellar Spectra’ which helped him work with leading scientists in Europe. It was in Europe in 1920 that Saha discovered his equation. After coming back to India, he built the first cyclotron in the country. He also started Indian Science News Association (1935) and Institute of Nuclear Physics (1950).
In 1930, 1951 and 1955, Saha was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics by Debendra Mohan Bose and Sisir Kumar Mitra. In 1937 and 1940, Nobel Laureate Arthur H Compton also nominated Saha’s name.
2. Homi Jehangir Bhabha (1909-66)
Hailed as the Father of Indian Nuclear Programme, Homi J Bhabha was nominated five consecutive times for the Nobel Prize in Physics between 1951 and 1956, by French Mathematician Jacques Hadamard.
However, the Prize eluded the nuclear physicist who laid the foundations for two of India’s most elite scientific research institutions — Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
Born in 1909 in Bombay, Bhabha attended the Royal Institute of Science in 1927 after completing his schooling in Elphinstone College. He later joined Caius College at Cambridge to pursue Mechanical Engineering but it was theoretical physics that piqued his interest.
In 1935, Bhaba calculated the cross-section of electron-positron scattering, a phenomenon later renamed as Bhaba Scattering in his honour.
After his return to India in 1939, he worked under Sir CV Raman at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He went on to convince Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru to establish the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948.
3. Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-1974)
Satyendra Nath Bose’s name reverberates at the very foundation of Particle Physics through the Bose-Einstein statistics, Bose-Einstein condensate as well as the subatomic ‘boson’ particle named after him. A pioneer figure in the field of Quantum Mechanics, Bose never won the Nobel though several of his successors earned the honour by furthering on his work.
Born in Calcutta, Bose topped both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mixed Mathematics from the city’s Presidency College. Later, he found his forte in Einstein’s freshly published theory of relativity.
At that time, French or German scientists were publishing most of the pathbreaking research works. So, Bose, along with Meghnad Saha learnt French and German languages and co-published ‘The Principles of Relativity’ in 1920, the first-ever English translation of Einstein’s works, in both German and French.
Next, at the University of Dhaka, Bose went on to derive German physicist Max Planck’s Quantum Radiation Law without any reference to classical physics. In June 1924, Bose corresponded with Einstein, who translated his theory in German and got it published in Europe with the personal note: ‘Bose’s derivation of Planck’s formula appears to me an important step forward. The method used here gives also the quantum theory of an ideal gas, as I shall show elsewhere.’
Bose’s first nomination for the Nobel Prize in Physics came in 1956 from Prof K Banerji. Later, he was nominated by DS Kothari (1959), SN Bagchi (1962) and AK Dutta (1962).
4. Dr Upendranath Brahmachari (1873-1946)
The discoverer of Urea Stibamine, the life-saving drug for the deadly Kala-azar, narrowly missed India’ first and only chance at the Nobel Prize in Medicine till date. Dr Upendranath Brahmachari was nominated for the first time in 1929 by Indian biochemist and pharmacologist Sudhamoy Ghosh. Later, in 1942, Brahmachari received five nominations for the same from distinguished medical personalities.
While practising as a physician at Campbell Medical School, Calcutta, Brahmachari executed his research on Kala-azar. He attained success in 1922 after discovering an agent against Kala-azar, the urea salt of para-aminophenyl stibnic acid, which he named Urea Stibamine.
Though he did not receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine, he was knighted by the British government in 1934.
5. Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran (1922-2001)
To any student of Biochemistry, the Ramachandran plot is a basic necessity. However, it is hardly remembered that unsung Indian physicist behind the famous Ramachandran plot was India’s first-ever nomination for the coveted Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Gopalasamudram Narayanan Ramachandran was nominated by the Nobel Laureate Sir CV Raman himself in 1964; the former was a research scholar under Raman at IISc Bangalore.
Born in 1922 in Ernakulam, Kerala, Ramachandran studied BSc honours in Physics from St. Joseph’s College, Tiruchirappalli. Later, during his master’s and PhD at IISc, he delved into the study of crystal optics and crystal physics.
In 1947-49, Ramachandran went on to work at the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge where he earned his doctorate in X-ray diffuse scattering. Upon his return to India, Ramachandran concentrated on developing a ‘yardstick’ to assess structures of all polypeptides, which led to the discovery of Ramachandran Plot in 1962.
He was honoured with the Fellowship of the Royal Society of London.
6. Thiruvengadam Rajendram Seshadri (1900-75)
TR Sheshadri was a Padma Bhushan Indian chemist whose remarkable research in organic chemistry earned him a Nobel Prize nomination in 1966. He was nominated by Prof NV Subba Rao.
Born in 1900 in Kulithalai village of Tamil Nadu, Seshadri pursued his bachelor’s at the Presidency College, Madras. In 1927, he joined the University of Manchester with a scholarship and pursued his doctoral research under Nobel Laureate chemist Sir Robert Robinson. At this time, he developed several anti-malarial drugs and other medicinal compounds. He set up advanced laboratories for flavonoid research and also the Department of Chemical Technology and Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Andhra University during his tenure as the head of Chemistry department.
Later, he joined Delhi University and established a new research school for studying natural plant-derivatives, such as terpenoids, alkaloids and quinonoid.
