National Science Daycelebrated on February 28th.

• National Science Day is celebrated in India every year on the 28th of February to commemorate the discovery of the Raman Effect by Indian Physicist Sir C V Raman, on this day in 1928.
• This day was designated by the Government of India in 1986.
• This year the theme is ‘Global Science for Global Wellbeing’.

About C V Raman

• Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman (1888 – 1970) was an Indian physicist known for his work in the field of light scattering.
• He became the first Indian director of the Indian Institute of Science in 1933.
• He founded the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1933.
• He established the Raman Research Institute in 1948.
• In 1954, the Government of India honoured him with the first Bharat Ratna.

Raman effect

• Using a spectrograph, he discovered that when light traverses a transparent material, the deflected light changes its wavelength and frequency. This phenomenon was subsequently termed the Raman effect or Raman scattering.
  • Raman received the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery
  • He was the first Asian to receive a Nobel Prize in any branch of science.

Importance of Discovery

• The character of the scattered radiations enables us to obtain an insight into the ultimate structure of the scattering substance.
• The discovery would also find its use in chemistry, giving birth to a new field known as Raman spectroscopy as a basic analytical tool to conduct non-destructive chemical analysis for both organic and inorganic compounds.
• It has a wide variety of applications, from studying art and other objects of cultural importance in a non-invasive fashion to finding drugs hidden inside luggage at customs.