Rezensionen

Rajinder Singh

Einstein Rediscovered: Interactions with Indian Academics

Rajinder Singh is a well-established Historian of Science who has already published two dozen monographs on the Indian history of science, especially dedicated to contributions of the Calcutta School. He started his journey in this field by working on his Ph.D. thesis: “Nobel Laureate C.V. Raman’s work on Light Scattering”. I had the privilege to review half a dozen monographs of the author. I believe the present volume is most interesting due to its coverage of interactions of Einstein with Indian Academics beyond frontiers of science. It shows all traits of the personality of Einstein, the greatest scientist of twentieth century, while dealing with Indian academics.
In the “Preface” to this volume, Rajinder writes about his motive: “There are a number of books on Albert Einstein. To the best of my knowledge, there is no literature which extensively deals with his relation with Indian men of science, as well as the reception of his scientific ideas like light quanta and the theory of relativity. The present book is written to fill the gap”. He continues to elaborate further in his concluding remarks (Chapter 8) that his main aim was to clear the myths surrounding Bose-Einstein relations and about the status of Indian science and scientists.
In his “Foreword”, S.C. Roy has recalled the nature of relationship of Indian scientists and Einstein. He recounts: “The relationship between Meghnad Saha and Einstein was quite informal and friendly as Saha discussed many other issues beyond physics. This could probably be due to similar mindsets of the two. Both Einstein and Saha were of the opinion that scientists must also work towards increasing the society’s awareness of the implications of scientific discoveries”.
In the introductory chapter, Rajinder writes: “S.N. Bose is the only Indian physicist whose name appears with Einstein, that being in the case of Bose-Einstein statistics. In some circles it is believed that Einstein betrayed Bose by not guiding him properly or even removing the concept of photon’s spin from Bose’s manuscript”
Chapter 1 illustrates the humane nature of Einstein when he helped financially the bankrupt student, A.M. Bose, who was nephew of J.C. Bose and had a reference letter from Rabindra Nath Tagore. Einstein had intimate relations with non-scientists of India: “Einstein communicated not only with renowned politicians but also intellectuals and writers such as Amlan Datta – an economist, who was associated with the Presidency College, Visva Bharati University, Shantiniketan, and the University of Calcutta”. Einstein offered to promote his publication “For Democracy” in Germany, which shows his soft corner for Indians.
In Chapter 2, Rajinder has exploded the myth of betrayal of S.N. Bose by Einstein by his judicious choice of literature from the archives in Germany and elsewhere. In the section “In defense of Einstein”, the author refers to the correspondence between the two which was very cordial: “Bose-Einstein statistics was the brain-child of two brilliant scientists. As long as they lived, there was no sign of a sour relationship between the two. After S.N. Bose’s death his students and supporters started attacking Einstein. Their argument is based on oral history”. Einstein always supported S.N. Bose in advancement of his scientific career through letters of reference to Indian universities.
If Einstein used Bose’s idea and extended the theory to ideal gases himself, does it not amount to betrayal?Rajinder liberates Einstein from the charge of betrayal:”No. In the world of scientific research, nobody gives ideas to others for extension. Why expect it from Einstein? But this did not end the relationship between Einstein and Bose because the German physicist saw Bose as a colleague and went out of his way to bring his work to the knowledge of international community.”
Chapter 3 is based on personal correspondence of D.M. Bose with Einstein. S.N. Bose and M.N. Saha had corresponded with Einstein over a long span and translated his papers which were published in the form of a book. This is for the first time that Rajinder has produced the evidence that D.M. Bose acknowledged the influence of Einstein on his work: “The assumption on which my theory is based finds its chief support in the gyromagnetic experiments on ferromagnetic substances carried on by Einstein – de Haas and others. ... The results of these experiments show that g is independent of the nature of the substance and is equal to 2 within the limits of experimental error”.
In Chapter 4, the author tries to establish the equation between Einstein and M.N. Saha, the brilliant astrophysicist of India. M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose translated the papers of Einstein under the title: “The Principle of Relativity: Original Papers by A. Einstein and H. Minkowski”. M.N. Saha visited Berlin twice, met Einstein to discuss his research problems and got help to carry out his experiments. D.S. Kothari, one of brilliant students of Saha, was in touch with Einstein. He requested Einstein to write a few words for the occasion of the inauguration of a new Physical Laboratory (NPL) in Delhi. Einstein wrote to D.S. Kothari: “Keep good comradeship and work with love and without pre-conceived ideas and you will be happy and successful in your work.”
Chapter 5 is a short one on C.V. Raman and Einstein. Raman had no direct correspondence with Einstein. He acknowledges his indebtedness to Einstein in his obituary note of 1955: “I need therefore add here only a brief acknowledgement of my own personal indebtedness to the inspiration that I have derived from time to time from a study of Einstein’s fundamental papers on thermodynamics, light-scattering and quantum theory. I have returned to them again and again in the course of my work and benefited thereby.”
Chapter 6 “Reception of light quanta by the Indian scientific community” is the most captivating in this volume where the author discusses the influence of Einstein’s hypothesis of light quanta on scientists of both East and West. The author refers to the work of two Indian scientists, S.M. Sen and B. Misra, who were highly critical and had raised objections to Einstein’s theory of light quanta. Raman’s experiments provided confirmation of light quanta hypothesis but he had no occasion to interact with its founder in person. However, Einstein paid high accolade to C.V. Raman during an interview recorded in Princeton: “C.V. Raman was the first to recognize and demonstrate that the energy of a photon can undergo a partial transformation within matter. I still recall vividly the deep impression that this discovery made on all of us who at the time attended the Physics colloquium in Berlin.”
Chapter 7 “Theory of Relativity, Indians’ Reaction” has been written with a probing eye by the author as it clearly establishes the worth of Indian scientists in this field: “India is a global player in the field of the theory of relativity as is evident from different articles, which deal with history and a state-of-the-art. One of the well-known works in post-independent India is Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri’s equation, which is central to the understanding of gravitational attraction in astrophysics and cosmology, and in particular underlies the famous singularity theorems of general relativity theory.”
Rajinder has given detailed description of theoretical and experimental work of Indian scientists (G. Prasad, M.N. Saha and S.N. Bose) of Calcutta School and Kodaikanal Observatory under the direction of J. Evershed. Author highlights the work of N.R. Sen of Calcutta School of Relativity and that of V.V. Narlikar of Benares School of Relativity. Experimental work on the observation of the red-shift in support of theory of relativity was carried out by J. Evershed, T. Royds, and A.A.N. Ayyar of Kodaikanal Observatory in India. Towards the end of this Chapter, the author refers to “Criticism of Einstein’s ideas by Shah M. Sulaiman and an alternative approach”. M.N. Saha recommends Sulaiman’s work as follows: “Sir S.M. Sulaiman has formulated an intensely original Theory of Relativity, which has attracted widespread attention in Europe and America”.
In Chapter 8 “Concluding Remarks”, Rajinder shows his magnanimity in the following words:”India owes much to Albert Einstein, who communicated with a number of Indian men of science and culture. What we see from the foregoing chapters is, apart from S.N. Bose, there were many more Indians who sent him (Einstein) requests for commenting on or publishing their papers. In the majority of cases he gave his sincere comments. We have also seen that he wrote recommendation letters for S.N. Bose, M.N. Saha, and A.M. Bose. Einstein even offered financial support to A.M. Bose. This shows the humane side of Einstein”.
The author claims to explode some other myths like the lack of facility for high-end research due to poor conditions in India. His critical remarks are as follows:
(i) “In those days Indian men of science were well connected. This I write as most of science historians, in particular from social sciences, write that Indian men were working in isolation and on periphery!!
(ii) Indian scientists had enough money to go abroad and study at the science centers like Germany, France and UK. They were not “poor” scientists.
(iii) Persons like Sulaiman dared to oppose popular views on theory of relativity. His ideas were taken seriously abroad.
(iv) Einstein replied, almost each and every letter of Indian men of science, even that of a 12 year old young student (R.L. Brahmachary).
(v) He did not betray S.N. Bose as some famous Indian scientists like E.C.G. Sudarshan and P. Ghosh propagate in their outpourings.
I am sure that after reading the book, you will make your own opinion”. There is an exhaustive bibliography at the end which shows the enormous labour undertaken by the author to prepare this unique monograph for researchers in science and humanities. I congratulate Rajinder for bringing out hidden facets of Indian academics interaction with Albert Einstein in a fascinating story that reads like a novel.
S Hardev Singh Virk,
Ex-Professor, G.N.D. University, Amritsar.
e-mail : hardevsingh.virk@gmail.com

Quelle: Science and Culture, November-December, 2019

Anton Sterbling

Am Rande Mitteleuropas

Über das Banat und Rumänien

Anton Sterblings Reflexionen über eine Landschaft Mitteleuropas
Das Banat in seiner Komplexität VON MARKUS BAUER

Das Banat als europäische Kulturregion neu zu entdecken, wird in der Zukunft sicher häufiger versucht werden, wenn Temeswar/Timișoara im Jahr 2021 europäische Kulturhauptstadt sein wird. Vieles aus der Geschichte und Kultur dieser Region ist mit Gewinn an Einsichten über Südosteuropa und Rumänien noch zu entdecken. Zu diesen Themen gehört auch das Verständnis der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen, die die Landschaft und seine Bewohner geprägt haben. Diesem Thema widmet sich bereits seit Jahren der Soziologe Anton Sterbling, der neben seiner fachlichen Qualifikation den Vorteil mitbringt, die Region sehr genau zu kennen, weil er dort geboren und aufgewachsen ist. Der Autor des hier anzuzeigenden Bandes widmet sich zunächst der sozialen Topografie der Banater Schwaben, um dann der aktuellen Entwicklung Rumäniens und persönlichen Rückblicken Raum zu geben.
"Geographisch erstreckt sich das aus der Banater Tiefebene, dem Banater Hügelland und dem Banater Bergland bestehende historische Banat, grob gesprochen, zwischen der Theis im Westen, der Marosch im Norden, der Donau im Süden und den Ausläufern der Karpaten im Osten. Zumeist aber werden einige Gebiete nördlich der Marosch zum Banat gerechnet." Dabei ist als entscheidendes Merkmal der Region ihre Komplexität festzuhalten: "Das Banat stellt einen Kulturraum dar, in dem sich - historisch betrachtet - verschiedene ethnische, kulturelle und religiöse - Gebilde kompliziert überlagert und administrative und politische Grenzen sich mehrfach verschoben haben."
Sterblings Einstieg ist, chronologisch, die Wirkung des Ersten Weltkrieges auf die Region an unterer Theis und Donau. Im 19. Jahrhundert führte der Magyarisierungsdruck dazu, dass auch einzelne Banater Schwaben (also aus der deutschen Minderheit) sich ungarisch assimilierten. Modernisierung, Eisenbahnbau, Urbanisierung kennzeichneten die soziale Struktur der Landschaft, die ja im Bergland bedeutende Ressourcen an diversen Erzen Lind Kohle besaß, bis der Erste Weltkrieg einen der „Epochenbrüche“ für das Banat bedeutete, wie sie Sterbling in weiteren Artikeln auch für den Zweiten Weltkrieg, die Deportationen, die Enteignung und die Auswanderung konstatiert. Das Banat wurde 1919 geteilt mit Ungarn, Serbien und Rumänien als neuen Staatsträgern. Durch diese problematische Spaltung der Region ging die Wirtschaftskraft zurück, das Banat wurde zu einer neuen Grenzregion. Im größeren rumänischen Teil führte die Entwicklung zum Zweiten Weltkrieg über die Teilnahme der Schwaben an der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung hin zur Kriegsteilnahme und Flucht, mit dem Ergebnis einer von den neuen Regimen konstruierten Kollektivschuld der Deutschen, die zur Begründung von Deportationen in die Sowjetunion diente. Es ist interessant zu verfolgen, wie Sterbling vor allem diesen Epochenbruch als Ursache einer Retraditionalisierung der Schwaben herausarbeitet und dabei soziale Mobilisierung durch Bildung und Arbeitsverhältnisse andeutet. In diesem Zusammenhang ist auch die Entwicklung der Bundesrepublik als Bezugsgesellschaft zu verstehen.
Im Weiteren geht Sterbling ausführlicher auf die Geschichte der Banater Schwaben während des Sozialismus ein und beleuchtet die Aussiedlung, beginnend mit der wichtigen Tauwetterperiode der späten 1950er Jahre. Nun wurde der Einfluss westlicher Kultur spürbarer, es begann der Verkauf der Deutschen in die Bundesrepublik. Zwei Artikel schöpfen neben Sterblings theoretischer soziologischer Versiertheit vor allem auch von der Anschaulichkeit der eigenen Erfahrungen: einmal bei der Gegenüberstellung von Symbolkomplexen wie der katholischen Erstkommunion mit der sozialistischen Pionieraufnahme, ein andermal bei der Erschließung des Banater Berglandes als Industrieregion mit eigenen Besonderheiten, wobei der Autor Erlebnisse seines Studiums in Reschitza/Reşița einbezieht. Abgeschlossen wird dieser zweite Teil mit soziologischen Beobachtungen zur Integration der ausgereisten Banater Schwaben in der Bundesrepublik. Bevor im letzten Teil noch einmal interessante persönliche Beobachtungen und Analysen zu seiner Securitateakte sowie die Erinnerung an den Schriftsteller Paul Schuster den Band abschließen, wird in zwei Beiträgen Rumänien als Teil des Donauraums betrachtet, insbesondere in seinem Weg zum EU-Beitritt 2007. Der Sammelband bietet damit trotz einiger durch den Sammlungscharakter bedingten Wiederholungen den Interessenten am Banat und an Rumänien soziologisch und autobiografisch unterfütterten, reflektierten Lesestoff, den es so nicht häufig anzutreffen gibt.

Quelle: Deutsch-Rumänische Hefte 2/2019, S. 39

Rajinder Singh

C.V. Raman's Student Sukumar Chandra Sirkar: Life and Science

Dr. Rajinder Singh has made a very valuable contribution in writing a book on the Life and Science of Dr S C Sirkar who did his doctoral work under the supervision of the Nobel Prize winning physicist Dr C V Raman at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Sciences (usually abbreviated as IACS), Kolkata. Raman effect was discovered in 1928 and at that time, there were 28 scholars working with C V Raman and only 2 of them (S C Sirkar and K S Krishnan) were working on Light Scattering. Although K S Krishnan did not share the Nobel Prize with Raman (many thought he should have), but Krishnan did get good recognition of his work. However, as mentioned by Dr. Rajinder Singh, although Sirkar had contributed significantly to the discovery of Raman effect, he remained the unsung student of Raman. In 1930 (less than 2 years after the discovery of the Raman Effect), Sirkar had analyzed the intensity dependence of Raman lines which, according to Professor Kankan Bhattacharyya, laid the foundation of Resonance Raman Spectroscopy. This is indeed a remarkable contribution of Dr Sirkar which has been brought out by Dr. Rajinder Singh. Indeed Sirkar was awarded the DSc degree of Calcutta University for his work in determining the relative intensities of Raman lines.

Dr Sirkar had made extensive contributions on Raman effect, X-rays, and crystal structure, Kerr effect and also on cosmic rays. Dr. Singh has discussed details of research contributions of Dr Sirkar. Because of his very important research contributions, in 1942 (when he was 44 years old) Sirkar was elected Fellow of National Institute of Sciences of India (now known as Indian National Science Academy); however, at that time, he did not have a permanent job. In 1945 (when he was 47 years old), he was appointed a lecturer in the Science College, Calcutta Unversity and afterthree years he moved back to IACS as a Professor to head the Department of Optics. He did eventually (just before his retirement) became (Acting) Director of IACS during 1958-59.

Chapter 8 gives the long list of Dr. Sirkar’s publications including the titles of his 3 books. What is little strange is the fact that except for the very first paper of Sirkar (which was published in Nature in 1928) no other paper had C V Raman as a co-author and Raman left Calcutta for Bangalore only in 1933.

Every scientist (including teachers and students) must have a perspective of history which, unfortunately, is not included in our syllabi. In my opinion, Dr. Rajinder Singh has made an important contribution in tracing the history (and also important contributions) made by Dr Sukumar Chandra Sirkar.

Ajoy Ghatak
Meghnad Saha Professor
The National Academy of Sciences, India
(Formerly at IIT Delhi)
e-mail: ajoykghatak@gmail.com

Quelle: Science and Culture

Julia Steinhoff-Wagner, Bernadette Bothe, Simone Schmid, Sophia R. Kellner, Mechthild Freitag, Brigitte Petersen

Tierwohl-Atlas NRW

Tierwohl-Atlas NRW erschienen
Was wird zu Fragen des Tierwohls bei landwirtschaftlichen Nutztieren in Nordrhein- Westfalen erforscht? Welche Forschungseinrichtungen, Organisationen, welcher Verband oder welches Unternehmen widmen sich im Rahmen von geförderten Projekten diesem Themenkomplex? Und wie sehen diese Studien aus?
Erstmalig liefert der Tierwohl-Altas einen Überblick darüber, in welcher Weise und zu welchen Bereichen zur Verbesserung von Tierwohl und Tiergesundheit in der Schweine- und Rindfleischerzeugung, der Milchwirtschaft sowie der Geflügelfleisch- und Eierproduktion in NRW gearbeitet wird und wer aktiv beteiligt ist. In mehr als 100 Projekten. Die zwischen 2009 und 2015 durchgeführt wurden, sind tierschutzrechtliche, ethische und wirtschaftliche sowie wissenschaftliche Aspekte der Maßnahmen zur Veränderung und Verbesserung der Lebensbedingungen für landwirtschaftliche Nutztiere betrachtet worden.
Möglich wurde diese Zusammenstellung durch das Förderprogramm "Umweltgerechte und Standortgerechte Landwirtschaft" des Ministeriums für Klimaschutz, Umwelt, Landwirtschaft, Natur und Verbraucherschutz des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Der Tierwohl-Atlas NRW ist ein wertvoller Wegweiser für alle, die sich wissenschaftlich mit Fragen des Tierwohls befassen.
Die Übersicht für NRW entstand auf Initiative eines Gemeinschaftsprojektes der beiden Hochschulen Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn und Fachhochschule Südwestfalen. Als Mitglieder von KONN, dem Kompetenznetzwerk Nutztierforschung NRW, tragen sie maßgeblich zur Förderung des Wissenstransfers in die Praxis bei. Der Tierwohl-Atlas NRW ist im Shaker-Verlag (www.shaker-verlag.de) erschienen. Das Buch umfasst 284 Seiten, ISBN 978-3-8440-4354-9, und kostet 34,90 €. Das Buch steht auch als Online-Publikation auf der Internetseite des Verlages zur Verfügung.

Quelle: LZ Rheinland, Ausgabe 32 / 11. August 2016, S. 42

Rajinder Singh

C.V. Raman’s Laboratory and Discovery of the Raman Effect

An article on the Raman Effect appeared in the 22 July 1945 issue of People’s War, the newspaper of the Communist Party of India. Written by DD Kosambi under the pseudonym “An Indian Scientist”, this article is remarkable for several reasons, not least of which is that it is an early example of science journalism in India that mixes the hard science with the human story. That it appeared in a newspaper just as World War II ended, makes it quite unusual as well. There are a number of versions of this article among the Kosambi papers that are available in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library but let me quote from the printed version:
“Though this group did important work in sound and made a few almost negligible contributions to theory, their work was mainly experimental, with magnetism, and light which is after all, electromagnetic waves. It was important that Calcutta was a great centre of shipping and machine production. Whenever some costly apparatus was required, but no funds were forthcoming, Professor Raman would charter a taxi, prowl through the junk-shops of Calcutta and emerge with ridiculously cheap scraps which were soon rebuilt into what was required. For example, a costly electro-magnet which would have taken six months and several thousand rupees to import was built out of an ancient burnt-out dynamo for less than a hundred rupees all told. Of course, one could not improvise an X- ray tube like this, but the students learned that they had to try on their own rather than wait for someone else to supply the apparatus, or whine about the lack of an ‘atmosphere’ and ‘facilities’.
”The motivation that underlies Rajinder Singh’s slender book (which runs to something like 120 pages with a bibliography of an additional 30 pages) as stated in the preface, is to offer a critical analysis of Raman’s laboratory and funding. It is widely believed – as in Kosambi’s account quoted above - that Raman’s discovery in the late 1920’s cost no more than a few hundred rupees, and that it was possibly an early instance of the much touted Indian jugaad mentality at work. As Rajinder Singh brings out very well, given Raman’s level of ambition, his intellectual sophistication and his acute awareness of the standards of scientific quality of those times, this image is quite far from the truth. To quote again from Kosambi’s article:
“But Raman had made a trip to Europe that year and seen scientists like Ruark looking for the scattering of light by the very small particles of matter which we call atoms. They had failed. […] If so, cried Raman, his brain working with furious rapidity, progressively more complicated molecules must give progressively more complicated satellites. Sixty or more experiments were designed by him in a single week to prove or disprove this idea conclusively; the handful of students and their teacher worked night and day. A new effect was announced in Raman’s own Indian Journal of Physics, beating to the discovery of two Soviet Physicists (Landsberg and Mandelstam) who were checking their own results. India had produced a scientific discovery of the highest class and Raman had again proved that in the world of science it is the man who makes the experiment great, rather than the experiment making the man great.”
There is a lot of primary material that Rajinder Singh has accessed to bring out quite clearly that Raman was indeed well supported by Calcutta University, both in terms of his own salary as well as his laboratory funding. Raman had indeed been abroad several times in the 1920’s, to the US (1924), England (1921, 1924, 1929), Russia (1925), and Europe (1924, 1929, 1930). He knew the leading scientists across the world - indeed, he had the vision to not only start his own journal (now the Indian Journal of Physics) but was also keen to make the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) some sort of scientific academy.
As Rajinder Singh clearly brings out, there was a lot of equipment already available in Calcutta, either at the IACS or at Calcutta University, and that Raman had a thriving research enterprise. It is astounding to read that in 1923, there were 15 researchers in Raman’s group, 21 in 1924, and by 1927 the number was 36 of whom 23 were full-time research students. Rajinder Singh notes that these students were from all over undivided India except for a few provinces, and that many (but not all) published papers. Indeed, for a single research group to publish something like 49 papers a year (the data is for 1928) would be impressive at any time. There are any number of lessons here for us today!
All in all, though, this is an interesting book that takes a new look at Raman and his milieu. Serious historians of science are always able to reexamine archival material, find new evidence, and make fresh commentaries, as the author states in the preface. There are, however, several shortcomings of the book. It is very poorly produced. The text has not even been proofread carefully. The typesetting is very amateurish, and the photographs that have been included in the book are neither of the highest quality, nor have they been chosen particularly wisely. The fact that the publisher, Shaker Verlag is unlikely to have their books widely distributed in India may be an advantage: I believe it would serve readers of the book if efforts were made to have the book republished locally, but with more care.
Ramakrishna Ramaswamy
School of Physical Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
and
President, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bengaluru
e-mail: ramaswamy@jnu.ac.in

Quelle: SCIENCE AND CULTURE, NOVEMBER-DECEMBER, 2018, VOL. 84, NOS. 11–12, p. 427-428

Eva Olmo Gil

Der Einfluss von Karstquellen und Nebengewässern auf die Wasserqualität der Altmühl im Bereich zwischen Treuchtlingen und Eichstätt/Südliche Frankenalb

In dieser Dissertation werden die Beziehungen der durch ein Kartgebiet fließenden Altmühl als Vorflutgewässer zu den aus dem Karst kommenden Wässern untersucht und deren Einfluss auf die Wasserqualität und -quantität der Altmühl aufgezeigt. Die Erkenntnisse werden in den internationalen Forschungsstand eingeordnet, so dass diese auch auf andere Karstgewässer übertragen werden können.

Quelle: WasserWirtschaft, Heft 12/2018 S. 93