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Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose
1858–1937 · Physicist and Biophysicist
An Indian scientist who conducted pioneering experiments with radio and microwave waves and later developed sensitive instruments to measure electrical and mechanical responses to stimuli in plants, comparing some of these responses with those observed in animal tissues.
“The researches into the inorganic world may perhaps lead us to a truer insight into the mysteries of the organic.”
Why is this scientist famous?
Pioneering experiments with radio and microwave radiation and developing sensitive instruments to investigate electrical and mechanical responses in plants.
Bose's experiments with very short radio waves and his sensitive instruments for studying plants laid foundations for both modern wireless technology and the field of plant science. His refusal to patent his work reflected a belief that science should serve everyone, an idea that still resonates in today's open-science movement.
Sir's story
Early Life in Bengal
Jagadish Chandra Bose was born on 30 November 1858 in Mymensingh, in the Bengal Presidency of British India, in what is now Bangladesh. His father wanted him to learn in local village schools rather than in elite English-language institutions, so that he would grow up understanding the lives of ordinary people in India. This early education in a Bengali village school shaped Bose's outlook for life. He later attended St Xavier's School and College in Calcutta, where he excelled in science. He travelled to England in 1880 to study medicine at the University of London, but health problems forced him to switch to the study of natural sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was taught by the physicist Lord Rayleigh and graduated with a Natural Sciences Tripos in 1884.
Pioneering Radio and Microwave Experiments
After returning to India, Bose became a professor of physics at Presidency College in Calcutta in 1885, though he faced racial discrimination in his appointment and pay. Despite these difficulties, he began a remarkable series of experiments with electromagnetic waves. In 1895, he demonstrated that he could send electromagnetic signals through the air over a distance of about 75 feet, passing through walls and doors. This was one of the earliest demonstrations of wireless wave transmission in the world. What made Bose's work distinctive was his focus on very short wavelengths, what we now call microwaves or millimetre waves. He built his own apparatus to generate, transmit, and detect these waves, including a device called a coherer for detection. He was careful to distinguish his work from that of others like Heinrich Hertz and Guglielmo Marconi, focusing on the properties of short waves rather than long-distance radio communication. Although Bose was generally reluctant to commercialise his scientific work, he did obtain US Patent 755,840 for a detector for electrical disturbances, filed in 1901 and granted in 1904.
Microwave Optics
Bose's experiments with short electromagnetic waves went far beyond simple transmission. He showed that these waves could be reflected, refracted, and polarised, just like light waves. He used lenses made of glass and sulphur to focus the waves and measured how they passed through different materials. In effect, he was doing what we now call microwave optics, studying the behaviour of electromagnetic radiation at very short wavelengths. He demonstrated his findings at a lecture to the Royal Institution in London in 1897, where leading British scientists were impressed by the precision and inventiveness of his apparatus. His work was at the cutting edge of physics at a time when the nature of electromagnetic radiation was still being actively explored.
Turning to Plants
Around 1900, Bose shifted the direction of his research in an extraordinary way. He began to apply the same principles of precise physical measurement to living things, particularly plants. He wanted to know whether plants, which seem silent and motionless, actually respond to their environment in ways that can be measured. He developed extremely sensitive instruments to detect tiny movements and electrical signals in plants. One of his most important inventions was the crescograph, a device that could magnify and record very small movements of plant growth and response, making visible changes that were far too small and slow for the human eye to detect. Using the crescograph, he showed that plants produce measurable electrical and mechanical responses to stimuli such as light, heat, chemicals, and mechanical injury, and he compared some of these responses with those observed in animal tissues.
Plants and Animals Compared
Bose's plant experiments led him to draw parallels between the responses of plants and animals. He showed that plants could become fatigued, could recover after rest, and could be stimulated or depressed by chemicals in ways that resembled some animal responses. He argued that plants used electrical signals to communicate within their tissues, similar in principle to the nervous systems of animals. These ideas were highly controversial at the time, and many scientists in Europe were sceptical. Some of Bose's specific interpretations were scientifically disputed by his contemporaries, and aspects of his work remain debated. However, his central insight that plants are active, responsive living organisms whose behaviour can be studied with precise physical instruments was a significant contribution to the development of modern plant biology.
The Bose Institute
In 1917, Bose founded the Bose Institute in Calcutta, one of the first research institutes in India dedicated to scientific research. He gave the inaugural lecture there himself, and the institute became a centre for interdisciplinary research combining physics, biology, and chemistry. He was knighted by the British government in 1917 for his contributions to science. He continued his research and teaching until his death on 23 November 1937. His work helped establish the tradition of modern experimental science in India, and the Bose Institute remains an important research institution today.
What did they discover?
Millimetre Wave Experiments
Bose conducted pioneering experiments with electromagnetic waves at very short wavelengths (microwaves and millimetre waves), demonstrating reflection, refraction, and polarisation of these waves and building his own apparatus to generate and detect them.
The Crescograph
Bose invented the crescograph, an instrument that magnified and recorded extremely small plant movements and growth rates, making it possible to study plant responses to stimuli with unprecedented precision.
Electrical Responses in Plants
Bose demonstrated that plants produce measurable electrical signals in response to light, heat, chemicals, and injury, and showed parallels between plant and animal responses that challenged the sharp distinction between the two.
Amazing facts
He demonstrated wireless wave transmission in 1895, predating Marconi's famous 1897 transmission, though Bose focused on the physics of short waves rather than radio communication.
Although he was generally reluctant to commercialise his scientific work, he did obtain US Patent 755,840 for a detector for electrical disturbances, filed in 1901 and granted in 1904.
He built his own apparatus for generating and detecting microwaves, including a highly sensitive coherer of his own design.
He founded the Bose Institute in Calcutta in 1917, which is still an active research institution today.
He was knighted in 1917 for his contributions to science.
His crescograph could magnify plant movements by up to 10,000 times, revealing growth and responses invisible to the naked eye.
He was taught by Lord Rayleigh at Cambridge, who remained a supporter of his work throughout his career.
Timeline
Born on 30 November in Mymensingh, Bengal Presidency, British India (now Bangladesh)
Travelled to England to study, eventually reading natural sciences at Christ's College, Cambridge
Graduated from Cambridge with a Natural Sciences Tripos
Appointed professor of physics at Presidency College, Calcutta
Demonstrated wireless transmission of electromagnetic signals over 75 feet in Calcutta
Lectured on his microwave experiments at the Royal Institution in London
Began systematic research into electrical and mechanical responses in plants
Founded the Bose Institute in Calcutta and was knighted by the British government
Died on 23 November in Giridih, Bihar (now in Jharkhand), India
Awards & honours
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