02-04-2008, 11:28 PM
India unbound: NRIs do their bit
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<b>Amar Bose paved the way for breakthrough technology in acoustics (TOI Photo)Â
Of Raman Effect and Bose-Einstein Condensation, you might have an idea. But have you heard about the Chandrasekhar Limit, or Karmarkarâs Algorithm, or Viswanathâs Constant?</b>
Long before Indians got into nuts and bolts, their contributions to the world of pure science was the stuff of legends - whether it was Aryabhata and Brahmaguptaâs postulation of zero, or Buddhayanaâs calculation of the value of Pi, or Shridharaâs rules for finding out the volume of a sphere.
The rich theoretical tradition continues to this day as Indian scientists, engineers and mathematicians traverse the world. <b>Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the legendary C V Ramanâs equally famous nephew who taught at the University of Chicago, calculated the eponymous limit to describe the maximum non-rotating mass which can be supported against gravitational collapse, commonly given as being about 1.4 solar masses</b>.
<b>Narendra Karmarkar, who taught at Caltech and UC Berkeley before returning to India, introduced the eponymous algorithm in 1984 to solve linear programming problems</b>. <b>In 1999, Diwakar Viswanath, a computer scientist at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, arrived at the mathematical constant in number theory that carries his name. </b>
While the Indian legacy in conceptual thinking has been kept alive by such advances in theory, the second half of the 20th century also saw Indian-born scientists and engineers in the west contribute substantially to discovery and innovation. <b>In 1948, Yellapragada Subba Rao synthesized Aureomycrin, the first of the tetracycline antibiotics, and Methotrexate, used to alleviate several types of cancer, including childhood leukemia.</b> "He lived, so that you could live longer," it was said of him. <b>In 1952, Narendra Singh Kapany, building on the work of Irish physicist John Tyndall that had shown that light could travel in a curve inside a material (water), conducted experiments that led to the invention of optical fibre</b>. In 1956, underwhelmed by the performance of high-end stereo speaker systems, <b>Amar Gopal Bose undertook experiments that paved the way for breakthrough technology in acoustics and led to the formation of Bose Corporation.</b>
While these were the early pioneers, Indian contributions to the world of technology breakthroughs in the last quarter century are just too many to chronicle in a short article. <b>From Lasik eye surgery, which is built on the work of University of California scientist Mani Lal Bhaumik and IBM engineer Rangaswamy Srinivasan (whose grand-nephew Krishna Bharat gave the world Google News), to advances in catalytic convertors in automobile engines (credited to Fordâs Haren Gandhi), Indian contributions span the spectrum of science, medicine and engineering</b>.
In fact, many of the Indian-engineered or-inspired inventions are so much a part of our life now that they donât even stand out. How often do you associate Windows, whose early versions were largely wrought by desi heads, with Indians? Or <b>the rewritable CD, which was based on the work of Dr Praveen Chaudhuri, who now heads the Brookhaven National Laboratory?</b>
Thereâs no better place to get a sense of how deep the Indian contribution runs than the legendary Bell Labs, the 84-year-old institution whose inventions and discoveries crowd every part of our homes. This is where a young scientist named <b>Mohan Sondhi invented the echo canceller, which made phone conversations clear; where Bishnu Atalâs digital speech coding innovations dramatically expanded the benefits of cellular phone technology to millions of users; where C Kumar Patel invented the carbon dioxide laser; and where Arun Netravaliâs work led to the development of the High-Definition Television. </b>
But all this would seem like skimming the surface if one considers the past decade. Each year, since 2000, desis are present in greater numbers in every major annual list recognizing innovative work - from MITâs young tech innovators list to the National Academy of Sciences recognition for distinguished scientists, to science talent searches conducted by Intel, Lucent and Westinghouse. Next only to the US, which remains the world leader in modern advances despite its relative decline, India seems all geed up to make the world a better place.Â
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Â
<b>Amar Bose paved the way for breakthrough technology in acoustics (TOI Photo)Â
Of Raman Effect and Bose-Einstein Condensation, you might have an idea. But have you heard about the Chandrasekhar Limit, or Karmarkarâs Algorithm, or Viswanathâs Constant?</b>
Long before Indians got into nuts and bolts, their contributions to the world of pure science was the stuff of legends - whether it was Aryabhata and Brahmaguptaâs postulation of zero, or Buddhayanaâs calculation of the value of Pi, or Shridharaâs rules for finding out the volume of a sphere.
The rich theoretical tradition continues to this day as Indian scientists, engineers and mathematicians traverse the world. <b>Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the legendary C V Ramanâs equally famous nephew who taught at the University of Chicago, calculated the eponymous limit to describe the maximum non-rotating mass which can be supported against gravitational collapse, commonly given as being about 1.4 solar masses</b>.
<b>Narendra Karmarkar, who taught at Caltech and UC Berkeley before returning to India, introduced the eponymous algorithm in 1984 to solve linear programming problems</b>. <b>In 1999, Diwakar Viswanath, a computer scientist at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California, arrived at the mathematical constant in number theory that carries his name. </b>
While the Indian legacy in conceptual thinking has been kept alive by such advances in theory, the second half of the 20th century also saw Indian-born scientists and engineers in the west contribute substantially to discovery and innovation. <b>In 1948, Yellapragada Subba Rao synthesized Aureomycrin, the first of the tetracycline antibiotics, and Methotrexate, used to alleviate several types of cancer, including childhood leukemia.</b> "He lived, so that you could live longer," it was said of him. <b>In 1952, Narendra Singh Kapany, building on the work of Irish physicist John Tyndall that had shown that light could travel in a curve inside a material (water), conducted experiments that led to the invention of optical fibre</b>. In 1956, underwhelmed by the performance of high-end stereo speaker systems, <b>Amar Gopal Bose undertook experiments that paved the way for breakthrough technology in acoustics and led to the formation of Bose Corporation.</b>
While these were the early pioneers, Indian contributions to the world of technology breakthroughs in the last quarter century are just too many to chronicle in a short article. <b>From Lasik eye surgery, which is built on the work of University of California scientist Mani Lal Bhaumik and IBM engineer Rangaswamy Srinivasan (whose grand-nephew Krishna Bharat gave the world Google News), to advances in catalytic convertors in automobile engines (credited to Fordâs Haren Gandhi), Indian contributions span the spectrum of science, medicine and engineering</b>.
In fact, many of the Indian-engineered or-inspired inventions are so much a part of our life now that they donât even stand out. How often do you associate Windows, whose early versions were largely wrought by desi heads, with Indians? Or <b>the rewritable CD, which was based on the work of Dr Praveen Chaudhuri, who now heads the Brookhaven National Laboratory?</b>
Thereâs no better place to get a sense of how deep the Indian contribution runs than the legendary Bell Labs, the 84-year-old institution whose inventions and discoveries crowd every part of our homes. This is where a young scientist named <b>Mohan Sondhi invented the echo canceller, which made phone conversations clear; where Bishnu Atalâs digital speech coding innovations dramatically expanded the benefits of cellular phone technology to millions of users; where C Kumar Patel invented the carbon dioxide laser; and where Arun Netravaliâs work led to the development of the High-Definition Television. </b>
But all this would seem like skimming the surface if one considers the past decade. Each year, since 2000, desis are present in greater numbers in every major annual list recognizing innovative work - from MITâs young tech innovators list to the National Academy of Sciences recognition for distinguished scientists, to science talent searches conducted by Intel, Lucent and Westinghouse. Next only to the US, which remains the world leader in modern advances despite its relative decline, India seems all geed up to make the world a better place.Â
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