SRINIVAS RAMANUJAN

       SRINIVASA RAMANUJAN

Born: December 22, 1887
Died: April 26, 1920
Achievements: Ramanujan independently discovered results of Gauss, Kummer and others on hypergeometric series. Ramanujan's own work on partial sums and products of hypergeometric series have led to major development in the topic. His most famous work was on the number p(n) of partitions of an integer n into summands.

Srinivasa Ramanujan was a mathematician par excellence. He is widely believed to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th Century. Srinivasa Ramanujan made significant contribution to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions, continued fractions, and infinite series.

Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan was born on December 22, 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu. His father worked in Kumbakonam as a clerk in a cloth merchant's shop. At the of five Ramanujan went to primary school in Kumbakonam. In 1898 at age 10, he entered the Town High School in Kumbakonam. At the age of eleven he was lent books on advanced trigonometry written by S. L. Loney by two lodgers at his home who studied at the Government college. He mastered them by the age of thirteen. Ramanujan was a bright student, winning academic prizes in high school.

At age of 16 his life took a decisive turn after he obtained a book titled" A Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure and Applied Mathematics". The book was simply a compilation of thousands of mathematical results, most set down with little or no indication of proof. The book generated Ramanujan's interest in mathematics and he worked through the book's results and beyond. By 1904 Ramanujan had begun to undertake deep research. He investigated the series (1/n) and calculated Euler's constant to 15 decimal places. He began to study the Bernoulli numbers, although this was entirely his own independent discovery. He was given a scholarship to the Government College in Kumbakonam which he entered in 1904. But he neglected his other subjects at the cost of mathematics and failed in college examination. He dropped out of the college.

Ramanujan lived off the charity of friends, filling notebooks with mathematical discoveries and seeking patrons to support his work. In 1906 Ramanujan went to Madras where he entered Pachaiyappa's College. His aim was to pass the First Arts examination which would allow him to be admitted to the University of Madras. Continuing his mathematical work Ramanujan studied continued fractions and divergent series in 1908. At this stage he became seriously ill again and underwent an operation in April 1909 after which he took him some considerable time to recover.

On 14 July 1909 Ramanujan marry a ten year old girl S Janaki Ammal. During this period Ramanujan had his first paper published, a 17-page work on Bernoulli numbers that appeared in 1911 in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society. In 191,1 Ramanujan approached the founder of the Indian Mathematical Society for advice on a job. He got the job of clerk at the Madras Port Trust with the help of Indian mathematician Ramachandra Rao.

The professor of civil engineering at the Madras Engineering College C L T Griffith was interested in Ramanujan's abilities and, having been educated at University College London, knew the professor of mathematics there, namely M J M Hill. He wrote to Hill on 12 November 1912 sending some of Ramanujan's work and a copy of his 1911 paper on Bernoulli numbers. Hill replied in a fairly encouraging way but showed that he had failed to understand Ramanujan's results on divergent series. In January 1913 Ramanujan wrote to G H Hardy having seen a copy of his 1910 book Orders of infinity. Hardy, together with Littlewood, studied the long list of unproved theorems which Ramanujan enclosed with his letter. Hardy wrote back to Ramanujan and evinced interest in his work.

University of Madras gave Ramanujan a scholarship in May 1913 for two years and, in 1914, Hardy brought Ramanujan to Trinity College, Cambridge, to begin an extraordinary collaboration. Right from the start Ramanujan's collaboration with Hardy led to important results. In a joint paper with Hardy, Ramanujan gave an asymptotic formula for p(n). It had the remarkable property that it appeared to give the correct value of p(n), and this was later proved by Rademacher.

Ramanujan had problems settling in London. He was an orthodox Brahmin and right from the beginning he had problems with his diet. The outbreak of World War I made obtaining special items of food harder and it was not long before Ramanujan had health problems.

On 16 March 1916 Ramanujan graduated from Cambridge with a Bachelor of Science by Research. He had been allowed to enrol in June 1914 despite not having the proper qualifications. Ramanujan's dissertation was on Highly composite numbers and consisted of seven of his papers published in England.

Ramanujan fell seriously ill in 1917 and his doctors feared that he would die. He did improve a little by September but spent most of his time in various nursing homes. On February 18, 1918 Ramanujan was elected a fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and later he was also elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of London. By the end of November 1918 Ramanujan's health had greatly improved.

Ramanujan sailed to India on 27 February 1919 arriving on 13 March. However his health was very poor and, despite medical treatment, he died on April 26, 1920.

THE SUN

                           THE SUN 

Our Sun is a normal main-sequence G2 star, one of more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy.

The Sun Profile

diameter: 1,390,000 km.
mass: 1.989e30 kg
temperature: 5800 K (surface) 15,600,000 K (core)

History of The Sun

The Sun is by far the largest object in the solar system. It contains more than 99.8% of the total mass of the Solar System (Jupiter contains most of the rest).

It is often said that the Sun is an “ordinary” star. That’s true in the sense that there are many others similar to it. But there are many more smaller stars than larger ones; the Sun is in the top 10% by mass. The median size of stars in our galaxy is probably less than half the mass of the Sun.

The Sun is personified in many mythologies: the Greeks called it HELIOS and the Romans called it SOL.

 The Sun is, at present, about 70% hydrogen and 28% helium by mass everything else (“metals”) amounts to less than 2%. This changes slowly over time as the Sun converts hydrogen to helium in its core.

The outer layers of the Sun exhibit differential rotation: at the equator the surface rotates once every 25.4 days; near the poles it’s as much as 36 days. This odd behavior is due to the fact that the Sun is not a solid body like the Earth. Similar effects are seen in the gas planets. The differential rotation extends considerably down into the interior of the Sun but the core of the Sun rotates as a solid body.

Conditions at the Sun’s core (approximately the inner 25% of its radius) are extreme. The temperature is 15.6 million Kelvin and the pressure is 250 billion atmospheres. At the center of the core the Sun’s density is more than 150 times that of water.

The Sun’s power (about 386 billion billion mega Watts) is produced by nuclear fusion reactions. Each second about 700,000,000 tons of hydrogen are converted to about 695,000,000 tons of helium and 5,000,000 tons (=3.86e33 ergs) of energy in the form of gamma rays. As it travels out toward the surface, the energy is continuously absorbed and re-emitted at lower and lower temperatures so that by the time it reaches the surface, it is primarily visible light. For the last 20% of the way to the surface the energy is carried more by convection than by radiation.

The surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, is at a temperature of about 5800 K. Sunspots are “cool” regions, only 3800 K (they look dark only by comparison with the surrounding regions). Sunspots can be very large, as much as 50,000 km in diameter. Sunspots are caused by complicated and not very well understood interactions with the Sun’s magnetic field.

A small region known as the chromosphere lies above the photosphere.

The highly rarefied region above the chromosphere, called the corona, extends millions of kilometers into space but is visible only during a total solar eclipse (left). Temperatures in the corona are over 1,000,000 K.

It just happens that the Moon and the Sun appear the same size in the sky as viewed from the Earth. And since the Moon orbits the Earth in approximately the same plane as the Earth’s orbit around the Sun sometimes the Moon comes directly between the Earth and the Sun. This is called a solar eclipse; if the alignment is slighly imperfect then the Moon covers only part of the Sun’s disk and the event is called a partial eclipse. When it lines up perfectly the entire solar disk is blocked and it is called a total eclipse of the Sun. Partial eclipses are visible over a wide area of the Earth but the region from which a total eclipse is visible, called the path of totality, is very narrow, just a few kilometers (though it is usually thousands of kilometers long). Eclipses of the Sun happen once or twice a year. If you stay home, you’re likely to see a partial eclipse several times per decade. But since the path of totality is so small it is very unlikely that it will cross you home. So people often travel half way around the world just to see a total solar eclipse. To stand in the shadow of the Moon is an awesome experience. For a few precious minutes it gets dark in the middle of the day. The stars come out. The animals and birds think it’s time to sleep. And you can see the solar corona. It is well worth a major journey.

The Sun’s magnetic field is very strong (by terrestrial standards) and very complicated. Its magnetosphere (also known as the heliosphere) extends well beyond Pluto.

In addition to heat and light, the Sun also emits a low density stream of charged particles (mostly electrons and protons) known as the solar wind which propagates throughout the solar system at about 450 km/sec. The solar wind and the much higher energy particles ejected by solar flares can have dramatic effects on the Earth ranging from power line surges to radio interference to the beautiful aurora borealis.

Recent data from the spacecraft Ulysses show that during the minimum of the solar cycle the solar wind emanating from the polar regions flows at nearly double the rate, 750 kilometers per second, than it does at lower latitudes. The composition of the solar wind also appears to differ in the polar regions. During the solar maximum, however, the solar wind moves at intermediate speed.

Further study of the solar wind will be done by Wind, ACE and SOHO spacecraft from the dynamically stable vantage point directly between the Earth and the Sun about 1.6 million km from Earth.

The solar wind has large effects on the tails of comets and even has measurable effects on the trajectories of spacecraft.

Spectacular loops and prominences are often visible on the Sun’s limb (left).

The Sun’s output is not entirely constant. Nor is the amount of sunspot activity. There was a period of very low sunspot activity in the latter half of the 17th century called the Maunder Minimum. It coincides with an abnormally cold period in northern Europe sometimes known as the Little Ice Age. Since the formation of the solar system the Sun’s output has increased by about 40%.

The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old. Since its birth it has used up about half of the hydrogen in its core. It will continue to radiate “peacefully” for another 5 billion years or so (although its luminosity will approximately double in that time). But eventually it will run out of hydrogen fuel. It will then be forced into radical changes which, though commonplace by stellar standards, will result in the total destruction of the Earth (and probably the creation of a planetary nebula).

The Sun’s satellites

There are eight planets and a large number of smaller objects orbiting the Sun. (Exactly which bodies should be classified as planets and which as “smaller objects” has been the source of some controversy, but in the end it is really only a matter of definition. Pluto is no longer officially a planet but we’ll keep it here for history’s sake.)

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APJ ABDUL KALAM

                 A.P.J.ABDUL KALAM

Born On - 15 October 1931
Born In - Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India
Died On - 27 July 2015
Career - Scientist
Nationality - Indian

the President of India from 2002 to 2007. Already a highly accomplished and much respected individual when elected to be the president, Kalam had spent four decades as a scientist and science administrator at several prestigious organizations like the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Born into a family of humble means in Tamil Nadu, Kalam went on to study aerospace engineering in Madras Institute of Technology. His initial dream was to become a fighter pilot but he failed to qualify for the Indian Air Force. He then started working at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as a scientist and was later transferred to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Eventually he was appointed as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and in this position he played a key role in the Pokharan II nuclear tests. He became the President of India in 2002 and was known as the People's President. He left the office after serving one term and became professor of Aerospace Engineering at Anna University and a visiting professor at several other institutions.

Childhood & Early Life
Abdul Kalam was born as the youngest of five children of a Muslim boat owner named Jainulabudeen and his wife Ashiamma, in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. His ancestors had once been wealthy traders though his family lost much of its fortunes by the early 20th century. Kalam grew up in humble surroundings and had to take up a job while he was still in school in order to augment his family's meager income he distributed newspapers to help his father in providing for the family. Hewas a bright young boy, blessed with a thirst for knowledge and was always eager to learn new things. He completed his schooling from Ramanathapuram Schwartz Matriculation School and proceeded to study physics at the Saint Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli, from where he graduated in 1954. Then he studied aerospace engineering in Madras Institute of Technology, graduating in 1960. His childhood ambition was to become a fighter pilot but he narrowly missed achieving his dream.

Career at DRDO
After completing his studies he joined the Aeronautical Development Establishment of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) as a scientist. One of the first projects he worked on was to design a small helicopter for the Indian Army. He also got the opportunity to work with the renowned space scientist, Vikram Sarabhai as a part of the INCOSPAR committee. However, Kalam was not much satisfied with his career at the DRDO.

Career at ISRO
Kalam was transferred to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in 1969 as the project director of India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III). An expandable rocket project on which he had started working independently in 1965 got the government approval for expansion in 1969. Over the next several years he developed the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) and SLV-III projects, both of which proved to be successful. In the 1970s he also worked on the development of ballistic missiles from the technology of the successful SLV program and directed the projects Project Devil and Project Valiant which were aimed at producing a short-range surface-to-air missile. Even though the projects were discontinued in 1980 without achieving full success, they earned Kalam great respect and admiration from the scientific fraternity.

Return to DRDO
In 1980s, the government decided to initiate an advanced missile program under his directorship and thus the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP) was launched with Kalam as the chief executive. The program which aimed at the research and development of a comprehensive range of missiles started in 1982-83. Under the able guidance of Kalam, several missiles including Agni, an intermediate range ballistic missile and Prithvi, the tactical surface-to-surface missile, were developed.

Presidency
Kalam stood for presidency in 2002 and easily won the 2002 presidential election. He had the support of both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition Indian National Congress and was sworn in as the 11th president of the Republic of India on 25 July 2002. He was the first scientist to occupy Rashtrapati Bhawan. He was a popular president who was much respected by the citizens of the country. However, he was also criticized for his inaction in deciding the fate of the majority of the mercy petitions submitted to him during his tenure. He also kindled controversy with his decision to impose President's Rule in Bihar in 2005. At the end of his term he decided not to contest the Presidential election again and stepped down on 25 July 2007.

Post-Presidency
After leaving the president's office he became the chancellor of the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology Thiruvananthapuram and professor of Aerospace Engineering at Anna University. He also became a visiting professor at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong, the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and the Indian Institute of Management Indore, and taught information technology at the International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad.

As an Author
Abdul Kalam was also a noted author who had penned books like India 2020: A Vision for the New Millennium (1998), Wings of Fire: An Autobiography (1999), Ignited Minds: Unleashing the Power Within India (2002), and A Manifesto for Change: A Sequel to India 2020 (2014).

Awards and Honors
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam has been honored with several prestigious awards from the Government of India including the Padma Bhushan in 1981, the Padma Vibhushan in 1990, and the Bharat Ratna in 1997. He was also the recipient of the Von Braun Award (2013) from the National Space Society "to recognize excellence in the management and leadership of a space-related project". Following his death, the Tamil Nadu state government announced that his birthday, 15 October, would be observed across the state as "Youth Renaissance Day".

Personal Life
Kalam was a life-long bachelor. He had four elder siblings one sister and three brothers with whom he had close relations. He was a very simple person with just a few personal possessions.

Death
He remained active until the last day of his life. He was scheduled to deliver a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management Shillong on 27 July 2015. Only five minutes into his lecture, he collapsed and was rushed to the Bethany Hospital where he was confirmed dead of a sudden cardiac arrest. His last rites were performed in his hometown, Rameswaram.

Timeline

1931: Born in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, India

1954: Graduated from the Saint Joseph's College, Tiruchirappalli

1960: Joined the Aeronautical Development Establishment of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)

1969: Transferred to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

1970s: Directed Project Devil and Project Valiant

1982-1983: Became the chief executive of Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP)

1990: Awarded the Padma Vibhushan

1992: Appointed the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of the Defence Research and Development Organisation

1997: Awarded the Bharat Ratna

2002: Became the 11th President of India

2007: Stepped down from the presidency of India

2012: Launched a programme for the youth of India called the What Can I Give Movement

2015: Died of a cardiac arrest on 27 July.

C.V.RAMAN

                         C.V.RAMAN

Born: November 7, 1888
Died: November 21, 1970
Achievements: He was the first Indian scholar who studied wholly in India received the Nobel Prize.

C.V. Raman is one of the most renowned scientists produced by India. His full name was Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman. For his pioneering work on scattering of light, C.V. Raman won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.

Chandrashekhara Venkata Raman was born on November 7, 1888 in Tiruchinapalli, Tamil Nadu. He was the second child of Chandrasekhar Iyer and Parvathi Amma. His father was a lecturer in mathematics and physics, so he had an academic atmosphere at home. He entered Presidency College, Madras, in 1902, and in 1904 passed his B.A. examination, winning the first place and the gold medal in physics. In 1907, C.V. Raman passed his M.A. obtaining the highest distinctions.

During those times there were not many opportunities for scientists in India. Therefore, Raman joined the Indian Finance Department in 1907. After his office hours, he carried out his experimental research in the laboratory of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science at Calcutta. He carried out research in acoustics and optics.

In 1917, Raman was offered the position of Sir Taraknath Palit Professorship of Physics at Calcutta University. He stayed there for the next fifteen years. During his tenure there, he received world wide recognition for his work in optics and scattering of light. He was elected to the Royal Society of London in 1924 and the British made him a knight of the British Empire in 1929. In 1930, Sir C.V. Raman was awarded with Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on scattering of light. The discovery was later christened as "Raman Effect".

In 1934, C.V. Raman became the director of the newly established Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore, where two years later he continued as a professor of physics. Other investigations carried out by Raman were: his experimental and theoretical studies on the diffraction of light by acoustic waves of ultrasonic and hypersonic frequencies (published 1934-1942), and those on the effects produced by X-rays on infrared vibrations in crystals exposed to ordinary light. In 1947, he was appointed as the first National Professor by the new government of Independent India. He retired from the Indian Institute in 1948 and a year later he established the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, where he worked till his death.

Sir C.V. Raman died on November 21, 1970.

SIR M VISVESVARAYA

                SIR M VISVESVARAYA

Born: September 15, 1860
Died: April 14, 1962
Achievements: Architect of Krishnarajasagar Dam; devised steel doors to stop the wasteful flow of water in dams; honored with Bharat Ratna.

Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya was an eminent engineer and statesman and played a key role in building of modern India.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya was born on September 15, 1860 in Muddenahalli village in the Kolar district of the erstwhile princely state of Mysore (present day Karnataka). His father Srinivasa Sastry was a Sanskrit scholar and Ayurvedic practitioner. His mother Venkachamma was a religious lady. He lost his father when he was only 15 years old.

Visvesvaraya completed his early education in Chikkaballapur and then went to Bangalore for higher education. He cleared his B.A. Examination in 1881. He got some assistance from the Government of Mysore and joined the Science College in Poona to study Engineering. In 1883 he ranked first in the L.C.E. and the F.C.E. Examinations (equivalent to B.E. Examination of today).

When Sir M. Visvesvaraya cleared his engineering, Government of Bombay offered him a job and appointed him Assistant Engineer at Nasik. As an engineer, he achieved some marvelous feats. He planned a way of supplying water from the river Sindhu to a town called Sukkur. He devised a new irrigation system called the Block System. He devised steel doors to stop the wasteful flow of water in dams. He was the architect of the Krishnaraja Sagara dam in Mysore. The list is endless.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya lead a very simple life. He was a strict vegetarian and a teetotaler. He was known for his honesty and integrity. In 1912, Maharaja of Mysore appointed Visvesvaraya as his Dewan. Before accepting the position of Dewan of Mysore, he invited all his relatives for dinner. He told them very clearly that he would accept the prestigious office on the condition that none of them would approach him for favours. As Dewan of Mysore, he worked tirelessly for educational and industrial development of the state. When he was the Dewan many new industries came up. The Sandal Oil Factory, the Soap Factory, the Metals Factory, the Chrome Tanning Factory , were some of them. Of the many factories he started the most important is the Bhadravati Iron and Steel Works.

Sir M. Visvesvaraya voluntarily retired as Dewan of Mysore in 1918. He worked actively even after his retirement. Sir M. Visvesvaraya was honored with Bharat Ratna in 1955 for his invaluable contribution to the nation. When he reached the age of 100, the Government of India brought out a stamp in his honor. Sir Visvesvaraya passed away on April 14, 1962 at the age of 101.

Some of the honours and laurels conferred on Sir M. Visvesvaraya

• 1904: Honorary Membership of London Institution of Civil Engineers for an unbroken period of 50 years
• 1906: "Kaisar-i-Hind" in recognition of his services
• 1911: C.I.E. (Companion of the Indian Empire) at the Delhi Darbar
• 1915: K.C.I.E. (Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire)
• 1921: D.Sc. - Calcutta University
• 1931: LLD - Bombay University
• 1937: D.Litt - Benaras Hindu University
• 1943: Elected as an Honorary Life Member of the Institution of Engineers (India)
• 1944: D.Sc. - Allahabad University
• 1948: Doctorate - LLD., Mysore University
• 1953: D.Litt - Andhra University
• 1953: Awarded the Honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Town Planners, India
• 1955: Conferred ' BHARATHA RATNA'
• 1958: 'Durga Prasad Khaitan Memorial Gold Medal' by the Royal Asiatic Society Council of Bengal
• 1959: Fellowship of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore