Sir C.V. Raman: Biography, Death, Wife, and the Story Behind the Nobel Prize-Winning Raman Effect

Born: Thiruchirapalli (Tiruchirapalli), Madras Presidency, India; November 7, 1888
Died: Bangalore, India; November 21, 1970 (aged 82)
Nobel Prize: 1930, Physics — for his discovery of the "Raman Effect"

Who Was C.V. Raman? A Quick Introduction

Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman — universally known as C.V. Raman or Dr. C.V. Raman — was an Indian physicist and the first person to win a Nobel Prize in Physics for work carried out entirely in an Indian laboratory, without ever having studied abroad. He remains one of the most celebrated scientists India has ever produced, best known for discovering the phenomenon now called the Raman Effect.

When Was C.V. Raman Born, and Where?

C.V. Raman was born on November 7, 1888, in Thiruvanaikaval, near Tiruchirapalli (then called Trichinopoly), in the Madras Presidency of British India — present-day Tamil Nadu. He was the second of eight children born to Chandrasekhara Iyer and Parvathi Ammal.

Who Was C.V. Raman's Father?

Raman's father, Chandrasekhara Iyer (also recorded as Chandrasekhara Ramanathan Iyer), was a Tamil Brahmin and a lecturer in mathematics and physics. The family later moved to Visakhapatnam, in present-day Andhra Pradesh, after his father accepted a teaching position at Mrs. A.V. Narasimha Rao (A.V.N.) College — giving young Raman an academically rich household from the very start.

C.V. Raman's Education

Raman's academic gifts showed early: he completed his secondary schooling at just eleven years old and entered A.V.N. College the same year. Two years later, he moved to the prestigious Presidency College in Madras (now Chennai). At fifteen, he graduated at the top of his class with a B.A. with honors in Physics and English. Poor health prevented him from being sent abroad for further studies, as was customary for top students of the era, so he continued at Presidency College, earning his M.A. with honors in 1907 at just seventeen years old — a degree he is sometimes loosely described as having in "mathematics," though his true academic focus, and his father's teaching subject, was physics (with mathematics closely intertwined).

C.V. Raman's Wife

In 1907, Raman married Lokasundari Ammal. As the story goes, he first noticed her, then just thirteen, playing the veena at a family gathering, and arranged the marriage himself — an unconventional move for the time. The couple had two sons, Chandrasekhar and Radhakrishnan, the latter of whom went on to become a distinguished astrophysicist.

Early Career

With few scientific career opportunities available in India at the time, Raman initially joined the Indian Civil Services as an Assistant Accountant General in Calcutta. Even while working full-time in this role, he pursued his passion for science in his spare time at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, where he studied the physics of stringed instruments and Indian drums.

Rise to Scientific Recognition

In 1917, with his scientific reputation firmly established, Raman was offered the Sir Taraknath Palit Professorship of Physics at Calcutta University, a position he held for the next fifteen years. During this period, his work on optics and the scattering of light earned him international recognition. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1924, and was knighted by the British in 1929, becoming Sir C.V. Raman. The following year, he received the Royal Society's prestigious Hughes Medal.

(A related but separate piece of trivia: the first woman ever elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London was the crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale, in 1945 — over two decades after Raman's own election.)

The Nobel Prize and the Raman Effect

In 1930, Raman became the first Indian scholar educated entirely within India to receive science's highest honor, the Nobel Prize in Physics, for his discovery of what became known as the Raman Effect — the scattering of light as it passes through a transparent medium, causing a change in wavelength that reveals information about the medium's molecular structure. The discovery is commemorated in India every year on February 28th as National Science Day.

Later Career and the Raman Research Institute

In 1934, Raman became the director of the newly established Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, continuing there as a professor of physics two years later. In 1947, newly independent India's government appointed him the country's first National Professor. He retired from the Indian Institute in 1948, and the following year founded the Raman Research Institute in Bangalore, where he served as director and remained active until his death.

Today, a locality in Bangalore — C.V. Raman Nagar — is named in his honor, home to a number of research and defense institutions, a lasting tribute to the city that became his scientific home.

When Did C.V. Raman Die?

C.V. Raman died on November 21, 1970, in Bangalore, at the age of 82. He remained active at the Raman Research Institute until the very end of his life. In recognition of his extraordinary contributions to Indian science, he was honored with the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award.