Raman, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata

Raman, pronounced RAH muhn, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata, pronounced CHUHN druh SHAY kuhr uh VEHNG kuh tuh (1888-1970), an Indian physicist, discovered that when a beam of light passes through a liquid or a gas, it is scattered and the frequency of some of the scattered light is changed. This change, which is called the Raman effect, provides a way for studying the structure of the scattering molecules. For his discovery, Raman was knighted in 1929 and received the 1930 Nobel Prize for physics.

Raman was born in Trichinopoly (now Tiruchchirappalli). He founded the Indian Journal of Physics and the Indian Academy of Sciences. After 1930, he mainly studied the structure of crystals.

Contributor: Robert H. March, Ph.D., Prof. of Physics and Integrated Liberal Studies, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison.

Raman, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata

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