“A global index to measure the contemporariness of science shows most of India’s research dates back to the 1950s and 60s. The yesterday and today of science cannot be the same; we must do contemporary science,” Bharat Ratna-designate Prof C N R Rao said on Monday.
At the silver jubilee inaugural lecture of an in-house symposium at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research he regaled the audience with anecdotes and scientific insight.
“Time is catching up with India and we cannot say we have a lot of time. India is 66th among 140 nations in innovation. India has only 20 years to catch up with science for self-preservation, and no day is a holiday for science,” he told a gathering of young students and scientists.
To buttress his argument, he said India contributed about one per cent of the top research papers in the world annually compared to China (5 per cent) and the US (10 per cent). Referring to worries over water resources and waterborne diseases, Rao said work must be done on energy and water in the country.
He spoke about the experiences of scientists he called the ‘Gods’ of science.
He described how Excelsior magazine carried out a smear campaign to keep Madame Marie Curie out of the French Academy of Sciences only because she was a woman even though she had won two Nobel Prizes in 1903 and 1911.
Declaring that no one could equal the contributions of Michael Faraday, Rao said the beauty of his work lays in the simplicity of his thinking and experiments.
However, he did not get a Nobel Prize as he died in 1867 before the Nobel Prizes were instituted.
He also spoke of Ernest Rutherford and his Nobel Prize in 1908 for the chemistry of radioactive substances.
Rutherford took to mentoring students in his lab and under his leadership, Chadwick discovered the neutron in 1932.
Following this, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton performed experiments to split the nucleus in a controlled environment, he added.
Rao also referred to the spiritual realm, quoting Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore, to stress how science was a great means to make Indians selfless.
He said, “It is important that we criticise and question science. But it must be in an open process and not to belittle others. Daily trifles kill most people. Let us not pay too much attention to small things.”
Rao showed his lighter side as he spoke of the wrongs suffered by material and structural chemists at the hands of organic chemists.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bangalore / by Express News Service – Bangalore / November 19th, 2013