Indian Inventions & Discoveries " Sciences "

 

Bengali Chemist Prafulla  Chandra  Roy synthesized NH4NO2 in its pure form. A Ramachandran plot generated from the protein PCNA, a human DNA clamp protein that is composed of both beta sheets and alpha helices (PDB ID 1AXC). Points that lie on the axes indicate N- and C-terminal residues for each subunit. The green regions show possible angle formations that include Glycine, while the blue areas are for formations that don't include Glycine.

• Ammonium nitrite, synthesis in pure form: Prafulla Chandra Roy              synthesized NH₄NO₂ in its pure form, and became the first scientist to have done so. Prior to Ray’s synthesis of Ammonium nitrite it was thought that the compound undergoes rapid thermal decomposition releasing nitrogen and water in the process.
• Ashtekar variables:                                                                                                                    In theoretical physics, Ashtekar (new) variables, named after Abhay Ashtekar who invented them, represent an unusual way to rewrite the metric on the three-dimensional spatial slices in terms of a SU(2) gauge field and its complementary variable. Ashtekar variables are the key building block of loop quantum gravity.
• Bhatnagar-Mathur Magnetic Interference Balance:                                                           Invented jointly by Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar and K.N. Mathur in 1928, the so-called 'Bhatnagar-Mathur Magnetic Interference Balance' was a modern instrument used for measuring various magnetic properties. The first appearance of this instrument in Europe was at a Royal Society exhibition in London, where it was later marketed by British firm Messers Adam Hilger and Co, London.
• Bhabha scattering:                                                                                                                     In 1935, Indian nuclear physicist Homi J. Bhabha published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, in which he performed the first calculation to determine the cross section of electron-positron scattering. Electron-positron scattering was later named Bhabha scattering, in honor of his contributions in the field.
• Bose–Einstein statistics, condensate and Boson:                                                             On 4 June 1924 the Bengali professor of Physics Satyendra Nath Bose mailed a short manuscript to Albert Einstein entitled Planck's Law and the Light Quantum Hypothesis seeking Einstein's influence to get it published after it was rejected by the prestigious journal Philosophical Magazine. The paper introduced what is today called Bose statistics, which showed how it could be used to derive the Planck blackbody spectrum from the assumption that light was made of photons. Einstein, recognizing the importance of the paper translated it into German himself and submitted it on Bose's behalf to the prestigious Zeitschrift für Physik. Einstein later applied Bose's principles on particles with mass and quickly predicted the Bose-Einstein condensate.
• Braunstein-Ghosh-Severini Entropy:                                                                              This modelling of entropy using network theory is used in the analysis of quantum gravity and is named after Sibasish Ghosh and his team-mates, Samuel L. Braunstein and Simone Severini.
• Chandrasekhar limit and Chandrasekhar number:                                           Discovered by and named after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his work on stellar structure and stellar evolution.
• Galena, applied use in electronics of:                                                                       Bengali scientist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose effectively used Galena crystals for constructing radio receivers. The Galena receivers of Bose were used to receive signals consisting of shortwave, white light and ultraviolet light. In 1904 Bose patented the use of Galena Detector which he called Point Contact Diode using Galena.
• Mahalanobis distance:                                                                                                        Introduced in 1936 by the Indian (Bengali) statistician Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (29 June 1893 – June 28, 1972), this distance measure, based upon the correlation between variables, is used to identify and analyze differing pattern with respect to one base.
• Kosambi-Karhunen-Loève theorem:                                                                               Also known as the Karhunen–Loève theorem. The Kosambi-Karhunen-Loève theorem is a representation of a stochastic process as an infinite linear combination of orthogonal functions, analogous to a Fourier series representation of a function on a bounded interval. Stochastic processes given by infinite series of this form were first considered by Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi.
• Mercurous Nitrite:                                                                                                                  The compound mercurous nitrite was discovered in 1896 by the Bengali chemist Prafulla Chandra Roy, who published his findings in the Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal. The discovery contributed as a base for significant future research in the field of chemistry.
• Ramachandran plot, Ramachandran map, and Ramachandran angles:                     The Ramachandran plot and Ramachandran map were developed by Gopalasamudram Narayana Iyer Ramachandran, who published his results in the Journal of Molecular Biology in 1963. He also developed the Ramachandran angles, which serve as a convenient tool for communication, representation, and various kinds of data analysis. 
• Raman effect:                                                                                                                         The Encyclopædia Britannica (2008) reports: "change in the wavelength of light that occurs when a light beam is deflected by molecules. The phenomenon is named for Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who discovered it in 1928. When a beam of light traverses a dust-free, transparent sample of a chemical compound, a small fraction of the light emerges in directions other than that of the incident (incoming) beam. Most of this scattered light is of unchanged wavelength. A small part, however, has wavelengths different from that of the incident light; its presence is a result of the Raman effect."
• Raychaudhuri equation:                                                                                                 Discovered by the Bengali physicist Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri in 1954. This was a key ingredient of the Penrose-Hawking singularity theorems of general relativity.
• Saha ionization equation:                                                                                                         The Saha equation, derived by the Bengali scientist Meghnad Saha (6 October 1893 – 16 February 1956) in 1920, conceptualizes ionizations in context of stellar atmospheres.