Will India get another Nobel Prize in physics?
A. PONNUSAMY
Every year when the Nobel Prize list is announced, countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Russia are the winners in Physics, Chemistry and Medicine. We still boast on the lone winners each in Physics, Literature and Economics. We cannot claim the prizes given to Dr. Subramaniam Chandrasekar (Physics) and Dr. Hargobind Khorana (Medicine) as ours since they have settled in the U.S.
In 1930, with very poor or primitive experimental set-up, Sir C. V. Raman could win a Nobel Prize in Physics for his research work (Raman Effect – production of Raman spectral lines by molecules like CCl4 etc.). This helped physicists greatly to understand the structure of the molecules, which otherwise one could not see even with high resolution power microscopes. Now, it is more than three-quarter of a century past, we are unable to produce such a brilliant scientist to win a Nobel Prize in our country.
Technology no bar
In the mid-Sixties, I did the Raman Effect experiment in my P.G. class for carbon tetra chloride with the Wood’s tube apparatus and the exposure for recording the Raman lines was given for about one hour. My university mates were very proud of it then because Sir C.V. Raman could make a similar recording of the photograph of the spectral line in about 100 hours! Just think of the poor intensity of the light source used by him to produce the wonderful original research work. A couple of decades ago with intense laser sources, the Raman lines were recorded in a fraction of a second. Today, the technology has been developed extremely high. The National Physical Laboratory, the Central Electro Chemical Research Institute, the Indian Institute of Science, many Indian Institutes of Technology, BARC and TIFR and so on have many modern equipment and advanced techniques in the fields of spectroscopy, nuclear physics, electronics, astronomy and so on, along with fast digital computers, wonderful communication facilities like Internet, mobile phone etc. Still we are unable to produce another Nobel Laureate again in Physics, Chemistry or Medicine. One may begin to wonder if our Universities are just a graduate manufacturing (including Ph.Ds) industry. No, certainly not.
A few points are clear. Certainly the intellectual level of our science and technological experts are in no way inferior to those in the West. The direction of their plan about the future profession is now focused on quick money earning fields like engineering, business management and so on.
Value of basic sciences
Even if they choose physics or a similar subject in the undergraduate class, for the purpose of quick earning, and in search of jobs abroad, many of them move towards M.C.A. or M.B.A. or M.Sc. (Software). This sort of brain drain of our creamy layers of intellectuals is definitely an uncompensated loss to the country. A correct or an incorrect readymade answer for this is that there is either no proper job opportunity or proper recognition for their skills or ability.
Brilliant youngsters have to be encouraged to opt for the basic sciences rather than professional courses and deserving candidates should be given liberal financial help and academic guidance for research work. The National Talent Search Examinations can be of help in this direction. While a bureaucratic attitude is to be avoided, sponsorships from industry and philanthropists should be solicited. Experts in various fields of Indian-origin working abroad may be invited to come back to the motherland to render their valuable service here. Fixing a target date of achievement of the goal (say, a decade) and avoiding a negative stance can be beneficial.
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