A crowded assembly met at the University Hall, on the 22nd February,
1913, to hear the first of Prof. Bose's discourses before the University
of Lahore.
Dr. Bose opened his address by alluding to the historic journey of
Jivaka, who afterwards became the physician of Buddha, making his way
from Bengal to the University of Taxila, in quest of knowledge.
Twenty-five centuries had gone by and there was before them another
pilgrim who had journeyed the same distance to bring, as an offering
what he had gathered in the domain of knowledge.
The lecturer called attention to the fact that knowledge was never the
exclusive possession of any particular race nor did it ever recognise
geographical limitations. The whole world was interdependent, and a
constant interchange of thought had been carried on throughout the ages
enriching the common heritage of mankind. Hellenistic Greeks and Eastern
Aryans had met here in Taxila to exchange the best each had to offer.
After many centuries the East and West had met once more, and it would
be the test of the real greatness of the two civilisations that both
should be finer and better for the shock of contact. The apparent
dormancy of intellectual life in India had been only a temporary phase.
Just like the oscillations of the seasons found the globe, great
pulsations of intellectual activity pass over the different peoples of
the earth.
With the coming of the spring the dormant life springs forth; similarly
the life that India conserves, by inheritance, culture and temperament,
was only latent and was again ready to spring forth into the blossom and
fruit of knowledge. Although science was neither of the East nor of the
West, but international in its universality, certain aspect of it gained
richness of colour by reason of their place of origin. India, perhaps
through its habit of synthesis, was apt to realise instinctively the
idea of unity and to see in the phenomenal world an universe instead of
a multiverse. It was this tendency, the lecturer thought, which had led
Indian physicist, like himself, when studying the effect of forces on
matter to find boundary lines vanishing, and to see points of contact
emerge between the realms of the living and non-living. In taking up the
subject of the evening's discourse on electric radiation of Hertzian
waves, the lecturer explained the constitution of the apparatus which he
had devised for an exhaustive study of the properties of electric waves.
His apparatus permitted experiments with the electric rays to be carried
on with as much certainty as experiments with ordinary light, and he
demonstrated the identity of electric radiation and light. The electric
rays are reflected from plane and curved mirrors in the same way and
subject to the same laws. Electric rays, like rays of light are
refracted. Like race of light too, electric waves can be selectively
stopped by various substances, which are "electrically" coloured. Water
which is a conductor of electricity stops the electric ray; where as
liquid air which is a non-conductor is quite transparent to the rays.
Finally Professor Bose explained his discovery of Polarisation of these
rays by various crystals. Tourmaline, which was a good polariser for
ordinary light, was not so effective. The lecturer discovered that the
crystal Nemalite possessed the power of polarising the electric rays in
the most perfect manner. Professor Bose also explained how the internal
constitution of an opaque mass was revealed by the help of light which
was itself invisible.
The lecturer concluded his discourse by drawing attention to the
limitations of human perception. Man's power of hearing was confirmed to
eleven octaves of sound notes. In the case of vision the limitation was
far more serious, his power of sight extending only through a single
octave of those ether waves which constituted light. These ether
vibrations of various frequencies could be maintained by electrical
means. By pressing the stop button of the apparatus which was exhibited,
ether vibrations, 50,000 millions per second, were produced. A second
stop gave rise to a different vibration. Let his audience imagine a
large electric organ provided with an infinite number of stops, each
stop giving rise to a particular ether note. Let the lowest stop produce
one vibration a second. They should then get a gigantic wave of 186,000
miles long. Let the next stop give rise to two vibrations in a second,
and let each succeeding stop produce higher and higher notes. Let them
imagine an unseen hand pressing the different stops in rapid succession,
producing higher and higher notes. The ether note would thus rise in
frequency from one vibration in a second, to tens, to hundreds, to
thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to millions, to millions of
millions! While the ethereal sea in which they were all immersed were
being thus agitated by these multitudinous waves, they would remain
entirely unaffected, for they possessed no organs of perception, to
respond to these waves.
As the ether note rose still higher in pitch, they would for a brief
moment perceive a sensation of warmth. This would be the case when the
ether vibration reached a frequency of several billions of times in a
second. As the note rose still higher, their eyes would begin to be
affected, a red glimmer of light being the first to make its appearance.
From this point the few visible colours would be comprised within a
single octave of vibration--from 400 to 800 billions in one second. As
the frequency of vibration rose still higher their organs of perception
would fail them completely; a great gap in their consciousness would
obliterate the rest. The brief flash of light would be succeeded by
unbroken darkness. How circumscribed was their knowledge? In reality
they stood in the midst of a luminous ocean almost blind! The little
they could see was as nothing compared to the vastness of that which
they could not. But it may be said that, out of the very imperfection of
his senses, man has been able, in science, to build for himself a raft
of thought by which to make daring adventure on the great seas of the
unknown.
--_Amrita Bazar Patrika_, 24-2-1913.