This month, we remember the great physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, an outstanding academic at Dhaka University (DU) in 1921-1945. Known in Bengal as Satyen Bose, he was born in then Calcutta on January 1, 1894. Bose was hired as a reader in physics in DU's inception year. At that time, he had five journal publications; three of them were in Philosophical Magazine published in England, and two were written with Meghnad Saha, his friend and classmate. His most significant contribution to physics was on Planck's radiation formula. His work gave new insight between the old quantum theory of Planck, Einstein, Bohr and Sommerfeld, and the new quantum mechanics of Heisenberg, Dirac and Schrodinger. In June 1924, the first research paper Bose wrote in DU was sent to Albert Einstein, who recognised its merit and translated it into German. The paper was titled, "Planck's Law and the Light Quantum Hypothesis." It was published in the Zeitschrift fur Physik, the premier journal in physics in those days. The publication of this paper, which was only four pages long, immediately raised Bose's profile as an international scholar of repute and his association with Einstein remained a beacon of light throughout his life as a physicist. He was only 30 years old when he published this paper.

Meghnad Saha was Bose's good friend. Both attended the Presidency College and graduated together in 1913 and 1915 with BSc in physics and MSc in mixed mathematics from the University of Calcutta. In both examinations, Bose stood first and Saha second, and later they were selected by the University of Calcutta to teach advanced physics courses, a monumental task then as most journals on physics were in German or French. Only the Philosophical Magazine was in English. These journals were difficult to obtain in Calcutta. Saha learnt French and German and Bose learnt some German. They struggled to obtain Einstein's papers onSpecial Theory of Relativity (1905) andGeneral Theory of Relativity (1916) and translated them from German to English. They managed to publish the translated works and used them to teach advanced physics and other related subjects to postgraduate students in the University of Calcutta.

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Meeting of minds: How Dhaka University became a part of Bose-Einstein legacy

SN Bose's recruitment at DU was by the institution's first vice-chancellor, PJ Hartog. Hartog wanted to hire faculty members, who had an interest and capability in research to build Dhaka University more than just a teaching institution of higher learning. Bose felt that at the new university, he would be away from the more crowded University of Calcutta and have a "freer" hand to pursue his interests in physics. Hartog ensured support for a study leave that Bose sought, and DU gave him a handsome grant for his study leave to Europe. Special funds were also provided to secure Bose's family needs in Dhaka. Bose visited reputed laboratories in Europe and met many luminaries, including Einstein in Berlin in 1925.

Prior to his return from Europe, a professorship in physics opened up at DU. Bose applied for it. Einstein wrote him a recommendation letter, so did Prof Sylvain Levy from France. Bose did not have a PhD, so Dr DM Bose from the University of Calcutta was offered the position at Dhaka. When he declined, SN Bose was offered the position. He led the Department of Physics as a professor and chair from 1927. He also served as the dean of the Faculty of Science in the 1930s. He provided leadership in the foundational years to develop the physics department at DU into a strong research department and to organise the science faculty into an admirable branch of the university. Curzon Hall became the epicentre of research at DU. In 1945, prior to the 1947 Partition, he left Dhaka and took up the Khaira Professorship at the University of Calcutta and retired in 1956. He passed away in Calcutta in 1974.

The paper Bose had sent to Einstein in 1924 provided the basic framework for the existence of Bose-Einstein condensate. The experimental verification came much later in 1995 in laboratories in the US. American physicists Eric Cornell, Wolfgang Ketterle and Carl Wieman were awarded the Nobel Prize in 2001 for proving the existence of the Bose-Einstein condensate. Bose leaves a remarkable legacy in quantum physics for his work at DU. In November this year, Dhaka University organised a three-day international conference on Bose-Einstein statistics to celebrate 100 years of his achievement and legacy.

Dr Golam Newaz is professor of mechanical engineering at Wayne State University in Michigan, US and fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
Anique Newaz has an MPhil degree in South Asian Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Views expressed in this article are the authors' own.

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