Indian Scientist

                  Birbal Sahni  The renowned paleobotanist, Birbal Sahni, was born on 14 November 1891 at Shahpur district, now in Pakistan. He was the third son of Ishwari Devi and Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni. He studied at the Government College, Lahore and Punjab University and graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1914. After completion of his education, Birbal Sahni came back to India and worked as professor of botany at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and Punjab University for about a year. In 1920, he married Savitri Suri, who took an interest in his work and was a constant companion.  He studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent. He was the founder of Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow. Palaeobotany is a subject that requires the knowledge of both botany and geology. Birbal Sahni was the first botanist to study extensively about the flora of Indian Gondwana region. Sahni also e

Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray  Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray was born on 2 August 1861 in Khulna district in present-day Bangladesh. His father Harish Chandra Ray was a land proprietor, Up to the age of nine, Prafulla Chandra studied in a school in his village. In 1870, his family migrated to Calcutta, and Ray and his elder brother were admitted to Hare School. When in the fourth standard, he suffered from a severe attack of dysentery and had to postpone his studies for a couple of years and return to his ancestral home in the village. However, hie utilized this time in reading literature.  A pioneer in chemical research in India, Prafulla Chandra Ray joined the Presidency College as a lecturer in chemistry in 1889 after completing higher- education at the Edinburgh University. With the help of a renowned French chemist,Berthelot, he did commendable research work in Ayurveda. In 1892, he founded Bengal Chemic

        Jagadish Chandra Bose Jagadish Chandra Bose was born on 30 November 1858 in Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh). His father Bhagaban Chandra Bose was a deputy magistrate. Bose received early education in a vernacular village school. He was sent to Kolkata at the age of 11 to learn English and was educated at St. Xavier's School and College. He was a brilliant student. He passed his Bachelors in physics in 1879.  In 1880, Bose went to England. He studied medicine at London University for a year but gave it up because of his ill health. Within a year, he moved to Cambridge to take up a scholarship to study Natural Science at Christ's College, Cambridge. In 1885, he returned from abroad with a BSc degree and Natural Science Tripos (a special course of study at Cambridge). In 1894, Jagadish Chandra Bose decided to devote himself to pure research. He converted a small enclosure adjoining a bathroom in the P

                    Aryabhatta Aryabhatta the earliest known mathematician and astronomer of India. The birth place of Aryabhatta, who lived between circa 476-550 CE, is still a mystery. While many believe that he was born in Pataliputra in Magadha, present-day Patna in the state of Bihar, others are of the view that he was born in Kerala and lived  Magadha at the time of the Gupta rulers. His works include the Aryabhamiya (499 CE, when he was 23) and the Arya Siddhanta.  His most famous work, Aryabhatiya is a detailed text on mathematics and astronomy. The mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra and trigonometry. It also contains continued fractions, quadratic equations, sums of power series and a table of sines. Aryabhatta is believed to have written at least three texts on astronomy and wrote some free stanzas as well. Aryabhatta was a genius and all his

                    Bhaskara II Bhaskara II, also known as Bhaskaracharva, was born in 1114 CE near Vijjaydavida or present-day Bijapur in the state of Karnataka. Born to a family of scholars, he learnt mathematics from his astrologer father Mahesvara. A leading mathematician of twelth century, he wrote his first work on the systematic use of the decimal number system. He also headed the astronomical observatory at Ujjain, a leading mathematical centre of ancient India.  His main work Siddhanta Shiromani, which has four parts, namely, Lilavati, Bijaganita, Grahaganita and Goladhaya deals with arithmetic, algebra, mathematics of the planets and spheres, respectively Bhaskara is particularly known for the discovery of the principles of differential calculus and its application to astronomical problems and computations. While Newton and Leibniz have been credited with differential and i

                      Sushruta An ancient Indian surgeon from almost 2500 years ago, Sushruta made numerous contributions to the field, of surgery. Sushruta is regarded as  the Father of Surgery. In his book Sushruta Samhita, he described over 300 surgical procedures, 120 surgical instruments and classified human surgery categories. He lived, taught and practised his art on the banks of the Ganges which is now called Varanasi in North India.  Some of his contributions include surgical demonstration of techniques of making incisions, probing, extraction of foreign bodies, alkali and thermal cauterization, tooth extraction, excisions, and so on. He also described removal of the prostate gland, urethra, hernia surgery, caesarian section, and so on. He classified details of six types of dislocations, 12 varieties of fractures