WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.160 Okay, let's unpack this. We are diving into a 00:00:03.160 --> 00:00:07.599 figure who is maybe one of the most overlooked 00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:11.160 and yet, well, most profoundly influential scientists 00:00:11.160 --> 00:00:15.580 of the last 150 years, Sir Jagadish Chandra Bozo. 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:18.719 That's right. Born in 1858, his life is just 00:00:18.719 --> 00:00:22.239 this radical intersection of physics. botany 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:25.179 and institutional rebellion. It's unbelievable. 00:00:25.519 --> 00:00:28.039 I mean, imagine a single person who pioneered 00:00:28.039 --> 00:00:30.660 technology that's foundational to modern Wi -Fi. 00:00:30.739 --> 00:00:32.960 And at the same time, developed the earliest 00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:35.619 solid state semiconductor devices. And then on 00:00:35.619 --> 00:00:37.899 top of that, built these ultra sensitive instruments 00:00:37.899 --> 00:00:41.000 to prove that plants experience electrical responses, 00:00:41.060 --> 00:00:43.140 almost like human nerve tissue. What's so fascinating 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:45.799 here is that incredible breadth. But it's coupled 00:00:45.799 --> 00:00:49.899 with this rare, almost stubborn refusal to monetize 00:00:49.899 --> 00:00:52.280 his genius. He wasn't just a scientist. He was, 00:00:52.340 --> 00:00:55.280 I think, a true polymath who fundamentally rejected 00:00:55.280 --> 00:00:57.780 the artificial barriers of his era. Whether they 00:00:57.780 --> 00:00:59.700 were disciplinary boundaries, you know, separating 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:03.299 physics from biology. Or social barriers, like 00:01:03.299 --> 00:01:05.500 the colonial era racial discrimination he faced 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:08.620 every day. His work, it really forces us to ask, 00:01:08.680 --> 00:01:10.780 what truly separates the living from the non 00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:13.480 -living? Well, our sources today give us a rich, 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.060 detailed look at Bose's journey. We're going 00:01:16.060 --> 00:01:18.260 to cover his revolutionary work in millimeter 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:22.400 wave optics, the frustrating but essential controversy 00:01:22.400 --> 00:01:25.480 around his inventions. And then his just astonishing 00:01:25.480 --> 00:01:28.019 discoveries, proving the electrical sentience 00:01:28.019 --> 00:01:30.459 of plants. So we're on a deep dive mission to 00:01:30.459 --> 00:01:32.959 understand the full scope of this genius who, 00:01:33.079 --> 00:01:35.719 well... who truly connected the living and the 00:01:35.719 --> 00:01:37.879 non -living. To really understand the universal 00:01:37.879 --> 00:01:40.579 scope of Bose's science, you first have to understand 00:01:40.579 --> 00:01:43.120 the philosophy he developed right from his earliest 00:01:43.120 --> 00:01:45.879 education. You absolutely do. It starts in what 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:48.700 was then the Bengal presidency, modern -day Bangladesh. 00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:52.019 He was born in Maimon Singh in 1858. To a prominent 00:01:52.019 --> 00:01:54.680 Bengali Kayasta family. But the key context, 00:01:54.920 --> 00:01:57.140 as our sources point out, is that his family 00:01:57.140 --> 00:01:59.659 were part of the Brahmo Samaj movement. And that 00:01:59.659 --> 00:02:01.969 background is, well... It's absolutely essential 00:02:01.969 --> 00:02:04.549 to understanding his lifelong fight against discrimination. 00:02:05.170 --> 00:02:07.450 The Brahma Samaj was a reformist Hindu movement. 00:02:07.629 --> 00:02:10.629 What does that mean exactly, a reformist movement 00:02:10.629 --> 00:02:13.349 at that time? It was dedicated to modernizing, 00:02:13.469 --> 00:02:17.870 to questioning dogma, and critically, to rejecting 00:02:17.870 --> 00:02:21.169 the rigidity of the caste system. Bose's father 00:02:21.169 --> 00:02:23.849 was a high -ranking civil servant, and he was 00:02:23.849 --> 00:02:25.830 deeply influenced by this progressive mindset. 00:02:26.150 --> 00:02:28.650 And this mindset led to a very deliberate decision 00:02:28.650 --> 00:02:31.780 about Bose's education. His father just rejected 00:02:31.780 --> 00:02:36.080 the prevalent aristocratic status symbol of immediately 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:38.960 sending your kids to expensive English language 00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:42.080 schools. He did. Instead, Bose was sent to a 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:44.599 local Bengali language school first. A vernacular 00:02:44.599 --> 00:02:47.500 school. A vernacular school. And this decision, 00:02:47.539 --> 00:02:50.319 it profoundly shaped his entire worldview. In 00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:52.599 that school, he was sharing his bench with children 00:02:52.599 --> 00:02:55.539 from every social stratum. The son of a Muslim 00:02:55.539 --> 00:02:58.360 attendant? The son of a fisherman? Exactly. There 00:02:58.360 --> 00:03:00.000 were no social hierarchies in that classroom. 00:03:00.330 --> 00:03:01.770 And he talked about this later in life at the 00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:04.150 Big Cranpore Conference in 1915. Right. He said 00:03:04.150 --> 00:03:07.150 he was spellbound by their stories. Yes. These 00:03:07.150 --> 00:03:09.610 simple, profound stories his playmates told. 00:03:09.750 --> 00:03:12.370 They weren't about politics or social climbing. 00:03:12.469 --> 00:03:14.909 There were stories about nature, about birds, 00:03:14.969 --> 00:03:17.930 animals, aquatic creatures. And he directly credited 00:03:17.930 --> 00:03:20.310 that environment with cultivating this really 00:03:20.310 --> 00:03:23.889 intense, keen interest in how nature works. And 00:03:23.889 --> 00:03:26.789 crucially, with instilling a lifelong rejection 00:03:26.789 --> 00:03:30.280 of caste or community discrimination. This wasn't 00:03:30.280 --> 00:03:32.919 just some abstract philosophy for him. It was 00:03:32.919 --> 00:03:35.639 a lived experience. So when he eventually did 00:03:35.639 --> 00:03:38.379 enter the more orthodox world of higher education, 00:03:38.599 --> 00:03:40.919 he was already carrying that egalitarian view 00:03:40.919 --> 00:03:42.939 with him. He was. He went to the Hare School 00:03:42.939 --> 00:03:46.180 in Kolkata and then St. Xavier's College, where 00:03:46.180 --> 00:03:48.900 the Jesuit father, Eugene Lafont, really fostered 00:03:48.900 --> 00:03:51.080 his innate curiosity in the natural sciences. 00:03:51.379 --> 00:03:53.680 That set his formal path. But that path took 00:03:53.680 --> 00:03:55.439 a little bit of a detour, didn't it? He went 00:03:55.439 --> 00:03:58.400 to England. A slight but very significant detour. 00:03:58.699 --> 00:04:00.719 He enrolled in medicine in London, but he had 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:03.159 to quit. He had chronic ill health. And the thinking 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:05.539 is it was possibly from chemical exposure in 00:04:05.539 --> 00:04:07.199 the dissection rooms. And this turned out to 00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:09.659 be one of those, you know, beneficial failures. 00:04:10.319 --> 00:04:12.879 Completely. Yeah. Because it forced him to choose 00:04:12.879 --> 00:04:15.539 between the civil service, which was the prestigious 00:04:15.539 --> 00:04:19.040 expected path, and pure scholarship. And he wanted 00:04:19.040 --> 00:04:21.500 to follow his father into the Indian civil service. 00:04:21.740 --> 00:04:24.639 But his father actually forbade it. He did. His 00:04:24.639 --> 00:04:26.680 father detreed that Bowes should be a scholar 00:04:26.680 --> 00:04:30.459 who would rule nobody but himself. A powerful 00:04:30.459 --> 00:04:32.720 statement. It really is. And that set him on 00:04:32.720 --> 00:04:34.519 the course toward Christ's College, Cambridge, 00:04:34.779 --> 00:04:37.660 where he studied natural sciences. His advisor 00:04:37.660 --> 00:04:40.250 was the esteemed Lord Rayleigh. A Nobel laureate. 00:04:40.290 --> 00:04:43.069 A Nobel laureate known for his incredibly fastidious 00:04:43.069 --> 00:04:45.930 experimental methods. So Bose got degrees from 00:04:45.930 --> 00:04:48.569 Cambridge and University College London, trained 00:04:48.569 --> 00:04:50.930 by giants like James Dewar. So you have this 00:04:50.930 --> 00:04:53.649 combination of extremely high caliber, state 00:04:53.649 --> 00:04:56.189 of the art Western scientific training. Coupled 00:04:56.189 --> 00:04:59.050 with these deeply progressive, anti -discriminatory 00:04:59.050 --> 00:05:02.149 Bengali roots. It just created this, well, this 00:05:02.149 --> 00:05:05.149 truly combustible personality who was ready to 00:05:05.149 --> 00:05:07.290 challenge the system. And that challenge started. 00:05:07.819 --> 00:05:10.259 What, almost immediately upon his return to India 00:05:10.259 --> 00:05:14.160 in 1885? Instantly. He was appointed as an officiating 00:05:14.160 --> 00:05:17.040 professor of physics at Presidency College, Calcutta. 00:05:17.720 --> 00:05:21.120 But the historical record is clear. The college 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:23.579 principal and the director of education were 00:05:23.579 --> 00:05:26.439 very hesitant. Because those positions in the 00:05:26.439 --> 00:05:28.860 Imperial Education Service were pretty much reserved 00:05:28.860 --> 00:05:31.579 for Europeans. The racial discrimination wasn't 00:05:31.579 --> 00:05:35.300 hidden. It was institutionalized policy. The 00:05:35.300 --> 00:05:38.279 standard rule was that an Indian professor was 00:05:38.279 --> 00:05:40.839 paid only two -thirds the salary of a European 00:05:40.839 --> 00:05:43.459 peer. OK, so that's already a huge injustice. 00:05:43.779 --> 00:05:46.439 But then they compounded it. Because Bose's appointment 00:05:46.439 --> 00:05:48.980 was initially temporary, an officiating role, 00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:52.319 they unilaterally halved his pay again. So wait, 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:55.180 he's doing the exact same work, teaching a massive 00:05:55.180 --> 00:05:57.600 26 hours a week. 26 hours. Yes, his European 00:05:57.600 --> 00:05:59.680 colleagues. But he's getting one -third of their 00:05:59.680 --> 00:06:01.839 salary. That's just systemic injustice right 00:06:01.839 --> 00:06:03.839 there in the administration. And this is where 00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:06.879 his Brahmo -influenced philosophy just collided 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:09.240 head -on with that system, rather than quietly 00:06:09.240 --> 00:06:12.060 accept it or lobby internally. Which is what 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:13.860 most people would have done. Oh, absolutely. 00:06:14.040 --> 00:06:16.920 But he made this extraordinary, almost passive 00:06:16.920 --> 00:06:21.040 -aggressive stand that lasted for 1 ,095 days. 00:06:21.300 --> 00:06:23.879 He refused to accept any salary for the first 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:28.279 three years. Not a penny. He just worked. He 00:06:28.279 --> 00:06:30.720 taught his classes, he did his research, and 00:06:30.720 --> 00:06:33.560 he treated his job as an honorary position until 00:06:33.560 --> 00:06:35.959 they recognized his true worth. What an incredible 00:06:35.959 --> 00:06:38.860 personal sacrifice. How did he even support himself 00:06:38.860 --> 00:06:40.939 during that time? Well, we don't have perfect 00:06:40.939 --> 00:06:43.240 financial records, but we know he had family 00:06:43.240 --> 00:06:46.319 support. His focus was just absolute. He made 00:06:46.319 --> 00:06:48.779 this three -year protest a silent referendum 00:06:48.779 --> 00:06:52.120 on the principle of equality itself. His reasoning 00:06:52.120 --> 00:06:54.040 being that if his work was valuable, they'd have 00:06:54.040 --> 00:06:57.139 to pay him eventually. Exactly. Or if they fired 00:06:57.139 --> 00:06:59.259 him, that would also be a kind of victory because 00:06:59.259 --> 00:07:01.699 it would expose the system's inherent unfairness. 00:07:01.800 --> 00:07:04.519 And his integrity. It eventually forced the administration's 00:07:04.519 --> 00:07:06.959 hand. It did. After three years, his performance 00:07:06.959 --> 00:07:09.240 and his popularity with the students were just 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:12.199 undeniable. His point was made permanent with 00:07:12.199 --> 00:07:14.199 retrospective effect. Which means he got all 00:07:14.199 --> 00:07:16.360 three years of back pay in a single lump sum. 00:07:16.600 --> 00:07:19.279 A remarkable, sustained victory. against that 00:07:19.279 --> 00:07:21.740 bureaucracy but the institutional struggle didn't 00:07:21.740 --> 00:07:24.220 end there did it even after the salary was sorted 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:27.060 not at all despite his success in the classroom 00:07:27.060 --> 00:07:30.000 the college administration actively resisted 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:32.720 his research they argued it distracted him from 00:07:32.720 --> 00:07:34.779 his heavy teaching load so he was constantly 00:07:34.779 --> 00:07:38.019 struggling for funding for equipment constantly 00:07:38.019 --> 00:07:40.240 he often had to use his own limited resources 00:07:40.240 --> 00:07:43.120 and it's really important here to note the support 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:46.449 he got from the social activist and hindu None. 00:07:46.689 --> 00:07:49.750 Sister Nivedita. She helped fund his research. 00:07:50.009 --> 00:07:52.430 She did. And that kept his scientific output 00:07:52.430 --> 00:07:54.910 alive during this period of intense institutional 00:07:54.910 --> 00:07:57.910 resistance so that his foundational discoveries, 00:07:58.110 --> 00:08:00.129 the things we're about to talk about, they weren't 00:08:00.129 --> 00:08:02.089 built in some state of the art government funded 00:08:02.089 --> 00:08:04.829 lab. They were built in a small room fueled by 00:08:04.829 --> 00:08:07.550 personal savings and just radical determination. 00:08:08.569 --> 00:08:11.170 OK, so let's move from those institutional battles 00:08:11.170 --> 00:08:13.089 to the scientific revolutions that came out of 00:08:13.089 --> 00:08:15.870 that small lab in Calcutta. We need to look at 00:08:15.870 --> 00:08:18.430 how Bose basically created the foundation for 00:08:18.430 --> 00:08:20.990 modern wireless communication, starting with 00:08:20.990 --> 00:08:23.730 inventable light. Right. So by the mid 1890s, 00:08:23.730 --> 00:08:27.649 the world was electrified by the work of scientists 00:08:27.649 --> 00:08:30.290 like Oliver Lodge, who was demonstrating the 00:08:30.290 --> 00:08:33.269 transmission and detection of long radio waves. 00:08:33.409 --> 00:08:36.309 And this immediately inspired Bose. It did. But 00:08:36.309 --> 00:08:38.629 he wanted to move beyond just simple detection. 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:41.700 He wanted to start studying the optical properties 00:08:41.700 --> 00:08:44.019 of these electromagnetic waves. Like light, how 00:08:44.019 --> 00:08:46.940 it reflects, refracts, polarizes. Exactly. But 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:49.000 to properly examine things like polarization 00:08:49.000 --> 00:08:52.080 and reflection in radio waves, you need wavelengths 00:08:52.080 --> 00:08:54.419 that are much, much shorter than the standard 00:08:54.419 --> 00:08:56.759 long waves being used for telegraphy. So his 00:08:56.759 --> 00:08:59.399 whole goal was to make radio waves behave like 00:08:59.399 --> 00:09:01.519 light. And to do that, he had to miniaturize 00:09:01.519 --> 00:09:04.519 them. Precisely. And his major breakthrough, 00:09:04.799 --> 00:09:06.740 and this is where his just staggering technical 00:09:06.740 --> 00:09:09.080 foresight comes in, was successfully reducing 00:09:09.080 --> 00:09:11.620 the waves down to the millimeter level. Specifically 00:09:11.620 --> 00:09:13.919 around five millimeter wavelength. Yes, which 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.120 is firmly in the microwave range. Yeah. He was 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.620 operating at frequencies as high as 60 gigahertz, 00:09:18.779 --> 00:09:21.139 to put that in context for you. That's 60 billion 00:09:21.139 --> 00:09:23.700 cycles per second? In the 1890s. It's almost 00:09:23.700 --> 00:09:27.480 unbelievable. So to send a signal. at 60 gigahertz 00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:30.360 and have it travel what was 75 feet through two 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:33.299 walls, he must have faced an immense technical 00:09:33.299 --> 00:09:36.159 challenge. What was harder, creating a powerful 00:09:36.159 --> 00:09:38.740 enough transmitter or a sensitive enough detector? 00:09:39.120 --> 00:09:41.759 You know, both were monumental challenges, especially 00:09:41.759 --> 00:09:43.899 with the tools he had available in 19th century 00:09:43.899 --> 00:09:46.639 India. But the transmission side was perhaps 00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:49.340 the most demanding, just in terms of sheer precision. 00:09:49.899 --> 00:09:52.000 Because at 5 millimeters, everything has to be 00:09:52.000 --> 00:09:54.419 perfectly scaled down. Perfectly. I mean, the 00:09:54.419 --> 00:09:57.220 list of specific components Bose invented just 00:09:57.220 --> 00:09:59.419 to handle this frequency range, it reads like 00:09:59.419 --> 00:10:01.639 a modern microwave engineering textbook. Okay, 00:10:01.700 --> 00:10:03.600 so let's list some of those. What did he actually 00:10:03.600 --> 00:10:05.559 invent? All right, he invented the waveguide. 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:07.580 Which is basically plumbing for invisible light, 00:10:07.679 --> 00:10:10.059 right? A tube to guide the waves. That's a great 00:10:10.059 --> 00:10:12.600 way to put it. He developed horn antennas to 00:10:12.600 --> 00:10:14.820 efficiently transmit and receive the energy. 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:18.120 He created dielectric lenses, which are prisms 00:10:18.120 --> 00:10:21.340 made of materials like sulfur or pitch, to focus 00:10:21.340 --> 00:10:23.879 the waves, just like optical lenses focus visible 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.379 light. And he also created polarizers. Various 00:10:26.379 --> 00:10:30.159 polarizers, yes. And critically, he was the first 00:10:30.159 --> 00:10:32.299 to use a primitive semiconductor junction for 00:10:32.299 --> 00:10:34.879 detection. I want to pause on the foresight there 00:10:34.879 --> 00:10:36.539 because the sources are really clear on this. 00:10:36.779 --> 00:10:40.139 After Bose's initial success with these millimeter 00:10:40.139 --> 00:10:43.399 wavelengths, further work in this range was, 00:10:43.419 --> 00:10:46.039 what, virtually non -existent for the next 50 00:10:46.039 --> 00:10:48.720 years. 50. He was operating in a technology space 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:50.759 that wouldn't become practical for things like 00:10:50.759 --> 00:10:53.940 radar and satellite communication until the 1940s 00:10:53.940 --> 00:10:56.960 and 50s. That gap just underscores his genius. 00:10:57.220 --> 00:11:00.740 He literally built a working 60 gigahertz system 00:11:00.740 --> 00:11:03.460 decades before the infrastructure or the material 00:11:03.460 --> 00:11:06.220 science or even the institutional support existed 00:11:06.220 --> 00:11:08.659 to pursue it. Right. And for context, much of 00:11:08.659 --> 00:11:10.559 his original equipment, which is still housed 00:11:10.559 --> 00:11:12.759 at the Bose Institute in Kolkata, would look 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:14.879 instantly recognizable to a modern electrical 00:11:14.879 --> 00:11:17.500 engineer working on 5G or satellite communications 00:11:17.500 --> 00:11:20.830 today. The fact that concepts from his 1897 papers 00:11:20.830 --> 00:11:23.830 are directly incorporated into receivers on modern 00:11:23.830 --> 00:11:26.289 radio telescopes today, that really confirms 00:11:26.289 --> 00:11:28.309 his foundational status. It absolutely does. 00:11:28.470 --> 00:11:31.009 The science was profound, but Bose knew how to 00:11:31.009 --> 00:11:33.789 make it visible. He was great at converting this 00:11:33.789 --> 00:11:36.169 cutting -edge physics into spectacular public 00:11:36.169 --> 00:11:39.629 theater. He really was. In November 1895, at 00:11:39.629 --> 00:11:42.289 the town hall of Kolkata, he put on this vivid 00:11:42.289 --> 00:11:44.970 public demonstration of his millimeter -range 00:11:44.970 --> 00:11:47.370 microwaves. And this demonstration was designed 00:11:47.370 --> 00:11:50.190 to silence the critics, the people who doubted 00:11:50.190 --> 00:11:52.110 that invisible light could actually penetrate 00:11:52.110 --> 00:11:55.330 solid objects. Precisely. He transmitted his 00:11:55.330 --> 00:11:58.470 waves over a substantial distance. 23 meters, 00:11:58.610 --> 00:12:01.669 about 75 feet. It made them pass through two 00:12:01.669 --> 00:12:03.950 intervening walls of the hall. And what happened 00:12:03.950 --> 00:12:06.049 on the receiving end? What was the payoff? The 00:12:06.049 --> 00:12:07.990 waves were received by an apparatus that immediately 00:12:07.990 --> 00:12:10.970 did two very visible things. It rang a bell. 00:12:11.480 --> 00:12:14.480 And for the dramatic finale, it ignited gunpowder 00:12:14.480 --> 00:12:16.779 in a closed room. So this wasn't just detection. 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:20.100 It was wireless controlled signaling that defied 00:12:20.100 --> 00:12:22.799 physical barriers. It was. The Englishman newspaper, 00:12:23.059 --> 00:12:25.440 which covered the event in 1896, they were so 00:12:25.440 --> 00:12:27.980 stunned they speculated his work could revolutionize 00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:30.379 the entire system of coast lighting. And then 00:12:30.379 --> 00:12:32.379 there was that moment, that theatrical moment, 00:12:32.500 --> 00:12:35.240 when the waves passed through the body of Lieutenant 00:12:35.240 --> 00:12:39.139 Governor Sir William McKenzie. A superb rhetorical 00:12:39.139 --> 00:12:41.700 and physical demonstration. It showed properties 00:12:41.700 --> 00:12:43.899 that were just utterly alien to the public at 00:12:43.899 --> 00:12:45.799 the time, this idea of waves passing right through 00:12:45.799 --> 00:12:48.200 human tissue. But beyond these dramatic shows, 00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:51.399 he was also pioneering these deep theoretical 00:12:51.399 --> 00:12:55.919 conceptual leaps, which brings us to his 1898 00:12:55.919 --> 00:13:00.200 experiment using a... A twisted jute structure? 00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:03.320 Yes. This sounds incredibly low -tech compared 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:05.820 to his high -frequency transmitters. What was 00:13:05.820 --> 00:13:08.879 he trying to do with twisted jute? He was studying 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:11.759 how waves behaved when passing through complex 00:13:11.759 --> 00:13:15.340 media, specifically the optical rotation of microwaves. 00:13:15.399 --> 00:13:17.639 He was exploring the properties of what we now 00:13:17.639 --> 00:13:20.340 call Chiral media. Chirality. So that's like 00:13:20.340 --> 00:13:22.700 handedness. Exactly. Like your right hand can't 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:24.799 perfectly overlay your left. A chiral structure 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:26.799 interacts differently with wave depending on 00:13:26.799 --> 00:13:29.200 their polarization and direction. So by twisting 00:13:29.200 --> 00:13:31.820 jute fibers, he was creating a material with 00:13:31.820 --> 00:13:34.659 a very specific engineered internal structure. 00:13:34.960 --> 00:13:38.259 He was. He was using plant fibers to construct 00:13:38.259 --> 00:13:41.720 this intricate, repeating geometric pattern of 00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:45.480 synthetic crystal, essentially. This seemingly 00:13:45.480 --> 00:13:48.679 simple experiment was a foundational step toward 00:13:48.679 --> 00:13:50.960 understanding and engineering metamaterials. 00:13:51.600 --> 00:13:53.559 Metamaterials, which are these engineered substances 00:13:53.559 --> 00:13:56.019 designed to have properties not found in nature, 00:13:56.139 --> 00:13:58.019 like bending light around an object, the things 00:13:58.019 --> 00:14:00.039 you hear about with cloaking devices. That's 00:14:00.039 --> 00:14:03.299 the futuristic application, yes. Bose was designing 00:14:03.299 --> 00:14:05.960 structures at the milliliter scale to control 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:09.000 the propagation of electromagnetic waves based 00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:11.879 on the material's geometry, not just its chemical 00:14:11.879 --> 00:14:14.879 composition. It's an incredible conceptual leap. 00:14:15.019 --> 00:14:17.539 He's connecting material physics directly to 00:14:17.539 --> 00:14:20.360 the most futuristic concepts in modern wave science. 00:14:20.620 --> 00:14:22.659 A century ahead of his time. As groundbreaking 00:14:22.659 --> 00:14:25.740 as his pure physics was, his next invention immediately 00:14:25.740 --> 00:14:28.159 threw him into this massive commercial and industrial 00:14:28.159 --> 00:14:31.240 race for wireless communication. A race he personally 00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:33.639 had zero interest in winning. Right. So let's 00:14:33.639 --> 00:14:37.059 get into Bose's diode detector and his... philosophical 00:14:37.059 --> 00:14:40.039 stance toward invention. So Bose needed a reliable 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:43.100 way to detect his short radio waves, something 00:14:43.100 --> 00:14:45.320 much more consistent than the crude spark gaps 00:14:45.320 --> 00:14:49.139 and early detectors others were using. In 1899, 00:14:49.399 --> 00:14:51.820 he announced his development of the self -recovering 00:14:51.820 --> 00:14:53.960 mercury coherer. Okay, let's break that down 00:14:53.960 --> 00:14:56.679 for the listener. First, what is a coherer and 00:14:56.679 --> 00:14:59.320 why did it need to be self -recovering? A coherer, 00:14:59.379 --> 00:15:02.539 historically, was the key receiver in early radio. 00:15:03.100 --> 00:15:05.440 It's usually just a small glass tube with loose 00:15:05.440 --> 00:15:07.899 metal filings in it. Normally, these filings 00:15:07.899 --> 00:15:10.919 have high electrical resistance. When a radio 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:13.799 wave hits them, the filings cohere, they stick 00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:16.399 together, and the resistance suddenly drops dramatically. 00:15:17.259 --> 00:15:19.399 that drop signals that you've received a wave. 00:15:19.539 --> 00:15:21.360 So what's the problem? The problem is once they 00:15:21.360 --> 00:15:23.379 cohered, they stayed stuck. You had to physically 00:15:23.379 --> 00:15:25.500 tap the tube. There was usually a little automated 00:15:25.500 --> 00:15:28.840 hammer to decohere the filings and reset the 00:15:28.840 --> 00:15:30.580 resistance to get it ready for the next signal. 00:15:30.700 --> 00:15:33.179 So that manual tapping limited the speed of transmission. 00:15:33.860 --> 00:15:36.740 Massively. And Bose's innovation was the self 00:15:36.740 --> 00:15:40.179 -recovering mercury coherer. He replaced the 00:15:40.179 --> 00:15:42.700 metal filings with a tiny, very delicate arrangement 00:15:42.700 --> 00:15:45.899 of iron, mercury, and sometimes carbon contacts. 00:15:46.179 --> 00:15:48.179 And how did that work? When the wave hit, the 00:15:48.179 --> 00:15:50.659 conductivity would briefly increase, but the 00:15:50.659 --> 00:15:52.360 surface tension of the mercury would naturally 00:15:52.360 --> 00:15:55.259 pull the contacts apart almost instantly, resetting 00:15:55.259 --> 00:15:57.460 the device without any mechanical tapping. So 00:15:57.460 --> 00:15:59.720 that speed and efficiency made it revolutionary 00:15:59.720 --> 00:16:02.940 for continuous signal reception. It was. And 00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:04.779 furthermore, this device was later recognized 00:16:04.779 --> 00:16:07.120 as the first patented solid -state diode detector. 00:16:07.580 --> 00:16:10.600 He filed for a British patent in 1901 and a U 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:13.620 .S. patent in 1904. But the truly staggering 00:16:13.620 --> 00:16:16.919 aspect of this is his simultaneous use of a galena 00:16:16.919 --> 00:16:19.740 crystal lead sulfide as a detector. Right. Why 00:16:19.740 --> 00:16:21.919 is the galena crystal so important in this story? 00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:24.259 Because Bills was the first person to use a naturally 00:16:24.259 --> 00:16:26.480 occurring semiconductor junction. a mineral, 00:16:26.580 --> 00:16:29.820 to detect radio waves. Before this, detection 00:16:29.820 --> 00:16:32.799 relied on these metal filing devices or on vacuum 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:35.879 tubes. The crystal detector is the direct lineal 00:16:35.879 --> 00:16:38.139 ancestor of every modern semiconductor device. 00:16:38.419 --> 00:16:41.200 The transistor, the microchip. The entire foundation 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:44.080 of modern computing and communication. Which 00:16:44.080 --> 00:16:46.740 brings to mind that quote from the Nobel laureate 00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:48.820 Sir Neville Mott that we found in our sources. 00:16:49.100 --> 00:16:51.720 Oh, it's a great one. He said, J .C. Bowes was 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:54.559 at least 60 years ahead of his time. In fact, 00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:57.600 he had anticipated the existence of P -type and 00:16:57.600 --> 00:17:00.620 N -type semiconductors. And that's not hyperbole. 00:17:00.659 --> 00:17:02.980 It's a technical acknowledgement of his priority. 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:06.559 He understood that certain materials, like galena, 00:17:06.700 --> 00:17:09.180 had these properties that made them better wave 00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:12.180 rectifiers than traditional conductors. He was 00:17:12.180 --> 00:17:14.380 intuitively working with the principles of semiconductor 00:17:14.380 --> 00:17:17.740 physics decades before the field was even formalized. 00:17:17.839 --> 00:17:20.119 But despite holding the key to the future of 00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.660 communication, the sources all highlight his 00:17:22.660 --> 00:17:25.579 profound disinterest in commercializing any of 00:17:25.579 --> 00:17:28.319 it. And this connects directly back to that philosophy 00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:30.750 we talked about in the first segment. Bose viewed 00:17:30.750 --> 00:17:33.009 his research as being focused on the nature of 00:17:33.009 --> 00:17:35.710 the phenomenon, a universal truth to be shared. 00:17:35.849 --> 00:17:40.009 Unlike Marconi. Right. Unlike Guglielmo Marconi, 00:17:40.009 --> 00:17:41.970 who was aggressively pursuing commercial dominance, 00:17:42.509 --> 00:17:44.829 Bose just preferred to lecture and publish his 00:17:44.829 --> 00:17:48.069 findings openly. A friend in the U .S. did persuade 00:17:48.069 --> 00:17:50.690 him to file a patent on his detector, but Bose 00:17:50.690 --> 00:17:53.730 just allowed that U .S. patent to lapse. He wasn't 00:17:53.730 --> 00:17:55.970 interested. He basically offered the technology 00:17:55.970 --> 00:17:58.630 to the world for free. And that lack of commercial 00:17:58.630 --> 00:18:01.150 drive is exactly what led to one of the biggest 00:18:01.150 --> 00:18:03.549 attribution disputes in early radio history. 00:18:03.750 --> 00:18:05.950 It sets the stage perfectly for the Italian Navy 00:18:05.950 --> 00:18:09.009 Cohere scandal. Marconi needed a highly sensitive, 00:18:09.170 --> 00:18:12.109 reliable detector for his big transatlantic wireless 00:18:12.109 --> 00:18:15.269 transmission attempt. He did. And Marconi's success 00:18:15.269 --> 00:18:18.130 in receiving the Morse code letter S on December 00:18:18.130 --> 00:18:21.710 12, 1901 at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, it was 00:18:21.710 --> 00:18:24.210 a landmark moment. But the device he used to 00:18:24.210 --> 00:18:26.289 receive that signal was heavily influenced by 00:18:26.289 --> 00:18:28.769 Bose's work. It was a modified version of Bose's 00:18:28.769 --> 00:18:31.009 self -recovering detector, the iron -mercury 00:18:31.009 --> 00:18:33.529 -iron setup. Yes, or iron -mercury -carbon. That 00:18:33.529 --> 00:18:35.430 was the core of it. So how did Marconi get his 00:18:35.430 --> 00:18:38.430 hands on this specific design? In mid -1901, 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:41.349 he got the design through Lieutenant Luigi Solari 00:18:41.349 --> 00:18:44.420 of the Royal Italian Navy. Solari's modification 00:18:44.420 --> 00:18:46.700 was just to encase the mercury droplet between 00:18:46.700 --> 00:18:49.279 electrodes inside a sealed glass tube, which 00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:51.660 made it more robust for field use. Marconi then 00:18:51.660 --> 00:18:53.740 filed his own patent on this modified device. 00:18:54.319 --> 00:18:57.119 And the controversy, the Italian Navy coherer 00:18:57.119 --> 00:19:00.359 scandal, it erupted in 1902. When claims emerged 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:02.779 that Marconi wasn't the originator, priority 00:19:02.779 --> 00:19:05.000 was suddenly attributed to other people. All 00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:07.339 sorts of other people. A naval signalman named 00:19:07.339 --> 00:19:10.200 Paolo Castelli, a professor Tommaso Tomasina, 00:19:10.319 --> 00:19:12.619 who had also experimented with mercury -based 00:19:12.619 --> 00:19:14.819 coherers. And this is where the detailed historical 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:17.240 analysis, especially from organizations like 00:19:17.240 --> 00:19:20.259 the IAEE, really provides the necessary clarification. 00:19:20.420 --> 00:19:23.750 It establishes Bose's priority. Yes, because 00:19:23.750 --> 00:19:25.690 the crucial element wasn't just using mercury. 00:19:25.930 --> 00:19:28.789 It was the design implementation. What was the 00:19:28.789 --> 00:19:31.450 specific technical distinction that proved Bose's 00:19:31.450 --> 00:19:33.930 priority over someone like Tomasina? It was the 00:19:33.930 --> 00:19:36.450 integration with the telephone receiver. Bose's 00:19:36.450 --> 00:19:39.089 1899 design was built for continuous auditory 00:19:39.089 --> 00:19:41.190 detection. You could listen to the signal. Which 00:19:41.190 --> 00:19:42.670 you would need for his high -frequency waves. 00:19:43.109 --> 00:19:45.390 You'd have to have it. And the historical records 00:19:45.390 --> 00:19:48.589 confirm that Thomasina's earlier, simpler mercury 00:19:48.589 --> 00:19:51.750 experiments, they lacked this crucial telephone 00:19:51.750 --> 00:19:54.430 integration. So it was Bohe's combination of 00:19:54.430 --> 00:19:56.930 the self -recovering high -speed contact with 00:19:56.930 --> 00:19:59.230 the continuous auditory output that provided 00:19:59.230 --> 00:20:02.400 the sensitivity Marconi needed. That's what made 00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:04.940 his design the technical ancestor of the device 00:20:04.940 --> 00:20:08.180 that heard the S cross the Atlantic. And Marconi, 00:20:08.180 --> 00:20:11.500 you know, citing commercial secrecy, just omitted 00:20:11.500 --> 00:20:14.640 references to Bose in his accounts. He focused 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:17.220 on Solari's modification. And that omission. 00:20:17.660 --> 00:20:20.480 coupled with Bose's own indifference to patenting, 00:20:20.539 --> 00:20:23.079 allowed the history to be obscured for nearly 00:20:23.079 --> 00:20:25.440 a century. It really raises an important question, 00:20:25.519 --> 00:20:27.880 doesn't it? How often does the sheer gravitational 00:20:27.880 --> 00:20:31.279 pull of commercial success just overshadow fundamental 00:20:31.279 --> 00:20:33.759 non -commercial scientific discovery? I think 00:20:33.759 --> 00:20:35.920 about that a lot. Bose allowed his technology 00:20:35.920 --> 00:20:38.599 to become a global public good. And in doing 00:20:38.599 --> 00:20:40.839 so, he allowed others to achieve fame and fortune 00:20:40.839 --> 00:20:43.759 based on his core technical leap. His reward 00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:46.500 wasn't wealth, but the pure satisfaction of understanding 00:20:46.500 --> 00:20:49.579 the phenomenon. So now we cross this incredible 00:20:49.579 --> 00:20:52.759 intellectual divide. After pioneering the physics 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.819 of invisible light and semiconductors, Bose just 00:20:55.819 --> 00:21:00.079 pivots entirely. To biology, specifically botanical 00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:03.039 responses. He took the same rigor and electrical 00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:05.700 precision he applied to 60 gigahertz waves and 00:21:05.700 --> 00:21:08.680 he applied it to a leaf. It's an amazing shift. 00:21:08.819 --> 00:21:11.220 His transition was motivated by a core hypothesis, 00:21:11.460 --> 00:21:13.720 right? That the principles of response were universal. 00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:16.690 That was his driving idea. His major contribution 00:21:16.690 --> 00:21:19.569 to biophysics was demonstrating that the conduction 00:21:19.569 --> 00:21:22.690 of stimuli in plants, things like a physical 00:21:22.690 --> 00:21:26.049 injury, heat, chemical agents, that it was primarily 00:21:26.049 --> 00:21:28.670 electrical in nature. Not purely chemical, which 00:21:28.670 --> 00:21:31.410 was the prevailing theory. Exactly. He argued 00:21:31.410 --> 00:21:33.849 it was electrical and that it behaved in a manner 00:21:33.849 --> 00:21:36.430 parallel to animal nerve tissues. So the botanical 00:21:36.430 --> 00:21:38.349 community at the time, they largely believed 00:21:38.349 --> 00:21:41.150 plant reactions were these slow, purely chemical 00:21:41.150 --> 00:21:44.089 processes. And Bose essentially looked at a plant 00:21:44.089 --> 00:21:46.380 and said, I bet it has a nervous system, too. 00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:48.700 And to prove it, he had to create instruments 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:51.819 of just unheard -of sensitivity. This is where 00:21:51.819 --> 00:21:54.200 we introduce the Cresco graph. His ingenious 00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.359 invention. The sources describe it as an automatic 00:21:57.359 --> 00:22:00.240 recorder capable of registering extremely slight 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:03.299 movements. But how did he get it sensitive enough 00:22:03.299 --> 00:22:06.180 to register these tiny changes in plant growth? 00:22:06.500 --> 00:22:08.759 Well, the mechanism was just a brilliant piece 00:22:08.759 --> 00:22:11.549 of mechanical and optical engineering. It combined 00:22:11.549 --> 00:22:14.329 a very fine system of levers with a clockwork 00:22:14.329 --> 00:22:16.710 mechanism, which recorded the plant's movement 00:22:16.710 --> 00:22:19.369 onto a smoked glass plate. But the key was the 00:22:19.369 --> 00:22:21.630 magnification. The key was the magnification. 00:22:22.130 --> 00:22:25.630 The system had a tiny gear train and used optical 00:22:25.630 --> 00:22:28.049 magnification, so it was capable of registering 00:22:28.049 --> 00:22:31.049 movements as small as one hundred thousandth 00:22:31.049 --> 00:22:33.539 of an inch. By compounding mechanical magnification 00:22:33.539 --> 00:22:36.539 with projection, the Kresger graph could effectively 00:22:36.539 --> 00:22:39.480 magnify a plant's minute movement up to 10 ,000 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:41.700 times. 10 ,000 times. So if a plant grew one 00:22:41.700 --> 00:22:44.059 millimeter, the recorder would register 10 meters. 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:46.480 That's the level of sensitivity that allowed 00:22:46.480 --> 00:22:48.339 him to capture these instantaneous responses 00:22:48.339 --> 00:22:50.920 that were previously completely invisible. That 00:22:50.920 --> 00:22:53.240 speed and sensitivity let him measure plant response 00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:55.920 to stimuli with the precision of a physicist 00:22:55.920 --> 00:22:58.660 measuring an electrical current. And he focused 00:22:58.660 --> 00:23:01.039 on plants that were known for movement, like 00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:03.539 the sensitive plant Mimosa pudica. The one that 00:23:03.539 --> 00:23:05.740 famously folds its leaves when you touch it. 00:23:06.059 --> 00:23:09.460 And also the telegraph plant, Desmodium gyrans, 00:23:09.579 --> 00:23:12.660 whose tiny side leaflets are constantly twitching. 00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:15.940 And the results he got were revolutionary. He 00:23:15.940 --> 00:23:18.460 used the Crescograph to generate these electrical 00:23:18.460 --> 00:23:21.160 readings, showing a direct, immediate response 00:23:21.160 --> 00:23:24.279 to injury or stimulus. Exactly. He was documenting 00:23:24.279 --> 00:23:27.059 the electrical nature of these responses. Essentially, 00:23:27.099 --> 00:23:29.279 he was measuring action potentials. Electrical 00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:31.380 spikes, like the ones generated by an animal 00:23:31.380 --> 00:23:34.160 nerve or muscle fiber? The very same phenomenon. 00:23:34.220 --> 00:23:36.680 He recorded the quivering of injured plants, 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:39.420 which he interpreted as a measurable physiological 00:23:39.420 --> 00:23:42.960 response akin to pain or shock in animal tissue. 00:23:43.240 --> 00:23:45.460 So just to be clear, what is an action potential 00:23:45.460 --> 00:23:48.619 in this context? Think of it as a sudden, rapid, 00:23:48.680 --> 00:23:51.039 temporary change in the voltage across a cell 00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:53.579 membrane. It's a rapid firing of an electrical 00:23:53.579 --> 00:23:56.900 signal. In animal biology, This is how nerves 00:23:56.900 --> 00:23:59.519 communicate. And Bose was recording this exact 00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.460 electrical phenomenon in plants. He was. He argued 00:24:03.460 --> 00:24:07.000 that an injury or a stimulus caused ion channels 00:24:07.000 --> 00:24:10.400 in the plant cells to open, generating an electrical 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:12.240 pulse that traveled through the plant tissue, 00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:14.839 similar to an animal impulse, just much slower. 00:24:15.019 --> 00:24:17.220 And his research went beyond just injury. He 00:24:17.220 --> 00:24:19.819 studied seasonal effects, the action of microwaves 00:24:19.819 --> 00:24:21.980 on plant tissues. And how plants move toward 00:24:21.980 --> 00:24:25.180 light heliotropism. His work on that is a beautiful 00:24:25.180 --> 00:24:27.940 example of detailed measurement. He invented 00:24:27.940 --> 00:24:30.339 a torsional recorder to study it. And what did 00:24:30.339 --> 00:24:32.619 she find? He found that when light was applied 00:24:32.619 --> 00:24:35.859 to one side of a sunflower, it caused turgor, 00:24:36.019 --> 00:24:38.140 that's the internal water pressure that defines 00:24:38.140 --> 00:24:41.140 cell rigidity, to increase on the opposite side. 00:24:41.299 --> 00:24:43.299 Which is what pushed the stem toward the light 00:24:43.299 --> 00:24:46.049 source. Exactly. He was mapping the physics of 00:24:46.049 --> 00:24:48.750 movement within plant life, revealing this highly 00:24:48.750 --> 00:24:50.970 sophisticated system of hydraulic and electrical 00:24:50.970 --> 00:24:53.730 control. And his measurements of electrical response 00:24:53.730 --> 00:24:56.349 in plants, they allowed him to make an even bolder 00:24:56.349 --> 00:24:59.009 claim, a philosophical and scientific claim that 00:24:59.009 --> 00:25:01.289 blurred the line between biology and physics 00:25:01.289 --> 00:25:04.269 entirely. Yes, in what he called the metal cell 00:25:04.269 --> 00:25:07.309 analogy. Right. So Bose believed that fundamental 00:25:07.309 --> 00:25:10.690 physical laws governed all matter. If living 00:25:10.690 --> 00:25:12.910 matter responded with an electrical curve of 00:25:12.910 --> 00:25:15.980 fatigue and recovery. Why shouldn't nonliving 00:25:15.980 --> 00:25:19.119 matter subjected to similar stresses? So he performed 00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:21.640 a comparative study of the fatigue response of 00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:23.619 various metals and organic tissue in plants. 00:25:23.900 --> 00:25:26.680 So he's taking metals like iron and subjecting 00:25:26.680 --> 00:25:29.619 them to mechanical stress, heat stress, electrical 00:25:29.619 --> 00:25:32.539 stress. What similarities did he actually find? 00:25:32.720 --> 00:25:35.500 He noted these striking quantifiable similarities 00:25:35.500 --> 00:25:38.000 in the cyclical fatigue and recovery response. 00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:41.279 If you repeatedly stimulate a muscle, it tires 00:25:41.279 --> 00:25:43.859 and the electrical response weakens. Given time, 00:25:43.940 --> 00:25:46.720 it recovers. Bose found that if he repeatedly 00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:48.799 sent electrical pulses through a metal wire, 00:25:49.039 --> 00:25:51.440 the metal's characteristic electrical response 00:25:51.440 --> 00:25:55.279 curve, its change in resistance, would also weaken. 00:25:55.339 --> 00:25:58.440 It showed fatigue. And given time, it would recover 00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:00.980 its initial response to this. I understand the 00:26:00.980 --> 00:26:03.160 measurement of fatigue in metal, but how did 00:26:03.160 --> 00:26:05.740 he justify that leap scientifically to the skeptics? 00:26:05.779 --> 00:26:07.279 I mean, that seems to negate the difference between 00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:09.660 a machine and a life form. But that was the entire 00:26:09.660 --> 00:26:12.980 point of his 1902 book, Response in the Living 00:26:12.980 --> 00:26:15.819 and Nonliving. He argued that what we traditionally 00:26:15.819 --> 00:26:19.480 define as response or irritability is merely 00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:21.819 a physical characteristic that's measurable through 00:26:21.819 --> 00:26:24.680 electrical language. The differences are of degree, 00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:27.599 not of kind. And the most profound part of this 00:26:27.599 --> 00:26:30.380 analogy involved his use of poison and anesthetics. 00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:33.259 That's the part that's truly mind -bending. He 00:26:33.259 --> 00:26:35.740 demonstrated that when anesthetics like chloroform 00:26:35.740 --> 00:26:38.259 were applied to plant cells, that characteristic 00:26:38.259 --> 00:26:40.660 electrical response curve to a stimulus would 00:26:40.660 --> 00:26:43.259 decrease and eventually just disappear. Just 00:26:43.259 --> 00:26:45.759 like an animal losing consciousness. Precisely. 00:26:45.880 --> 00:26:48.039 The same thing happened when he applied poison. 00:26:48.680 --> 00:26:51.079 The cells just ceased to react electrically. 00:26:51.140 --> 00:26:53.799 But the kicker, the true moment of blurring that 00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:56.539 line, came when he treated metals with chemical 00:26:56.539 --> 00:26:59.819 agents. Yes. He observed the same exact response 00:26:59.819 --> 00:27:02.579 when applying specific chemical agents to metals. 00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:05.599 When he treated metals with, for instance, oxalic 00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:08.740 acid, the metal's ability to exhibit its characteristic 00:27:08.740 --> 00:27:11.740 electrical response curve was suppressed or eliminated. 00:27:12.240 --> 00:27:15.119 So he was using the language of biology, anesthesia, 00:27:15.279 --> 00:27:19.079 poison, fatigue, recovery to describe physical 00:27:19.079 --> 00:27:22.220 changes in a piece of inert metal and vice versa. 00:27:22.460 --> 00:27:25.660 Here's where it gets really interesting. He essentially 00:27:25.660 --> 00:27:28.819 treated a piece of metal like a nerve cell and 00:27:28.819 --> 00:27:30.680 a nerve cell like an electrochemical device. 00:27:31.240 --> 00:27:34.160 He was blurring the boundaries using the universal 00:27:34.160 --> 00:27:37.359 language of electrical response. And his conclusion 00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:39.680 was that the electrical impulse was a universal 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:42.569 characteristic of all matter. which was a radical 00:27:42.569 --> 00:27:45.089 science that went completely against the dominant 00:27:45.089 --> 00:27:48.210 Western mechanistic views of life. It's important 00:27:48.210 --> 00:27:50.269 to remember this wasn't just a metaphor for him. 00:27:50.329 --> 00:27:53.289 He was measuring precise, quantifiable electrical 00:27:53.289 --> 00:27:56.650 changes. For Bose, the transition from the non 00:27:56.650 --> 00:27:59.029 -living to the living was not a sudden chasm, 00:27:59.069 --> 00:28:02.079 but a gradual slope. governed by the same set 00:28:02.079 --> 00:28:04.619 of physical laws. It's clear that Bose was driven 00:28:04.619 --> 00:28:06.920 by something much larger than just personal recognition 00:28:06.920 --> 00:28:09.819 or even specific scientific fields. He was driven 00:28:09.819 --> 00:28:12.400 by a commitment to experimental science in India. 00:28:12.599 --> 00:28:15.119 Absolutely. Which brings us to his legacy as 00:28:15.119 --> 00:28:17.589 an institution builder. He understood that for 00:28:17.589 --> 00:28:20.210 science to flourish in India, it required dedicated 00:28:20.210 --> 00:28:23.450 interdisciplinary infrastructure free from the 00:28:23.450 --> 00:28:25.609 bureaucratic and colonial restrictions he had 00:28:25.609 --> 00:28:28.750 been fighting his entire life. So in 1917, he 00:28:28.750 --> 00:28:31.849 established the Bose Institute in Kolkata. And 00:28:31.849 --> 00:28:35.109 he served as its director for two decades until 00:28:35.109 --> 00:28:37.170 his death. And our sources note that this was 00:28:37.170 --> 00:28:39.970 Asia's first interdisciplinary research center 00:28:39.970 --> 00:28:42.789 built specifically to study the unity of physics 00:28:42.789 --> 00:28:45.369 and biology. What was the underlying statement 00:28:45.369 --> 00:28:47.890 he was making by founding this institute? It 00:28:47.890 --> 00:28:50.130 was a direct challenge to that colonial era belief 00:28:50.130 --> 00:28:53.250 that the Indian mind was only suited for theoretical 00:28:53.250 --> 00:28:56.750 or metaphysical speculation and would shy away 00:28:56.750 --> 00:28:59.660 from. rigorous experimental science. His inaugural 00:28:59.660 --> 00:29:01.900 dedication was incredibly powerful. He called 00:29:01.900 --> 00:29:04.700 it not merely a laboratory, but a temple. A temple 00:29:04.700 --> 00:29:07.619 dedicated to nature. He declared, and I'm quoting 00:29:07.619 --> 00:29:19.420 here, He was offering a space where research 00:29:19.420 --> 00:29:21.500 could be pursued at the highest level, proving 00:29:21.500 --> 00:29:23.700 the capability of the Indian scientific mind. 00:29:24.079 --> 00:29:27.200 This institution was a crucial national statement 00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:30.319 of scientific sovereignty. And his literary output 00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:32.619 during this period was also pretty prolific. 00:29:33.039 --> 00:29:35.740 Beyond his huge scientific texts like Response 00:29:35.740 --> 00:29:38.180 in the Living and Nonliving and The Nervous Mechanism 00:29:38.180 --> 00:29:40.960 of Plants, he also branched into fiction. He 00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:45.339 did. In 1896, he wrote Nirudhushir Kahini, which 00:29:45.339 --> 00:29:48.799 means Story of the Missing One. He later expanded 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:52.079 it into Palatak Tufan or Runaway Seastorm. And 00:29:52.079 --> 00:29:54.099 this work is recognized as the first example 00:29:54.099 --> 00:29:56.799 of Bengali science fiction. The father of Bengali 00:29:56.799 --> 00:29:59.180 sci -fi. He was speculating about the future 00:29:59.180 --> 00:30:01.380 implications of science, things like weather 00:30:01.380 --> 00:30:04.079 control and natural disasters, even as he was 00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:06.460 inventing the present. It just shows this holistic 00:30:06.460 --> 00:30:09.440 mind that sought not just to analyze the world, 00:30:09.500 --> 00:30:12.779 but to imagine its potential. Despite the controversies 00:30:12.779 --> 00:30:15.359 over attribution, the honors did start to accumulate, 00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:17.700 especially later in his life, solidifying his 00:30:17.700 --> 00:30:20.400 status as a major global scientist. They did. 00:30:20.759 --> 00:30:23.119 His recognition included Companion of the Order 00:30:23.119 --> 00:30:25.559 of the Indian Empire in 1903, he was made a Knight 00:30:25.559 --> 00:30:29.440 Bachelor in 1917, and in 1920, he was named a 00:30:29.440 --> 00:30:32.559 Fellow of the Royal Society. The highest accolades 00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:34.430 of the time. But the most important recognition 00:30:34.430 --> 00:30:36.750 often comes decades later, doesn't it, when the 00:30:36.750 --> 00:30:39.250 historical record finally gets corrected? That's 00:30:39.250 --> 00:30:41.470 often the case. And his experimental work in 00:30:41.470 --> 00:30:43.930 millimeter band radio was recognized in 2012 00:30:43.930 --> 00:30:47.710 as an IE milestone in electrical and computer 00:30:47.710 --> 00:30:50.049 engineering. Which was the first such designation 00:30:50.049 --> 00:30:53.089 granted in India. Yeah. And that IE milestone 00:30:53.089 --> 00:30:56.130 is incredibly significant because it confirms, 00:30:56.309 --> 00:30:59.190 through rigorous technical analysis, his priority 00:30:59.190 --> 00:31:01.509 in the development of microwave technology and 00:31:01.509 --> 00:31:03.750 the crystal detector. He's also received a lot 00:31:03.750 --> 00:31:06.589 of cultural legacy markers. A Google Doodle in 00:31:06.589 --> 00:31:09.490 2016, a crater on the moon is named in his honor. 00:31:09.690 --> 00:31:11.650 And there's that fascinating tidbit from 2018 00:31:11.650 --> 00:31:14.329 where he was on the nomination list for the redesign 00:31:14.329 --> 00:31:17.130 of the UK 50 -pound note for his work enabling 00:31:17.130 --> 00:31:19.970 Wi -Fi development. It just illustrates his belated 00:31:19.970 --> 00:31:22.869 but powerful recognition as a key father of modern 00:31:22.869 --> 00:31:25.529 wireless communication. And finally, you have 00:31:25.529 --> 00:31:29.289 to return to his core philosophical view. It 00:31:29.289 --> 00:31:32.539 underpins everything. It explains why he fought 00:31:32.539 --> 00:31:35.079 the system on salary but gave away his technology 00:31:35.079 --> 00:31:38.940 for free. He drew inspiration from the epic Mahabharata, 00:31:39.039 --> 00:31:42.299 specifically the figure of Karna. Yes, valuing 00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:44.700 the higher and higher idea of conflict and defeat. 00:31:44.920 --> 00:31:47.380 He said that worldly success often seems small 00:31:47.380 --> 00:31:49.859 compared to the true success born of defeat. 00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:52.519 What a perspective. His core belief was that 00:31:52.519 --> 00:31:55.819 the only real lasting advantage is to fight fair, 00:31:56.039 --> 00:31:58.619 never to take crooked ways, but keep to the straight 00:31:58.619 --> 00:32:01.839 path, whatever be in the way. This integrity 00:32:01.839 --> 00:32:04.140 just perfectly explains his decision to forego 00:32:04.140 --> 00:32:06.599 patents and commercial game. His victory was 00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:09.220 internal. It was. Establishing truth through 00:32:09.220 --> 00:32:11.420 rigorous experimentation, not external wealth 00:32:11.420 --> 00:32:13.880 or fame. He knew that even if others took the 00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:16.299 immediate credit for the coherer, the truth of 00:32:16.299 --> 00:32:18.059 his fundamental discovery would eventually stand 00:32:18.059 --> 00:32:20.619 on its own. What an incredible journey through 00:32:20.619 --> 00:32:23.900 a life that just defied categorization. Sir Jagadish 00:32:23.900 --> 00:32:26.279 Chandra Bose was the physicist who took radio 00:32:26.279 --> 00:32:29.039 waves to 60 gigahertz. The engineer who fathered 00:32:29.039 --> 00:32:31.470 the crystal radio detector. The biophysicist 00:32:31.470 --> 00:32:34.150 who made plants speak through electrical response 00:32:34.150 --> 00:32:37.630 and the visionary who founded Asia's first interdisciplinary 00:32:37.630 --> 00:32:41.210 research center. If we connect this to the bigger 00:32:41.210 --> 00:32:44.009 picture, Bose demonstrated that a true scientist 00:32:44.009 --> 00:32:47.359 operates without artificial barriers. He moved 00:32:47.359 --> 00:32:50.319 seamlessly from material science and electromagnetism 00:32:50.319 --> 00:32:53.819 to plant physiology. Forcing us to fundamentally 00:32:53.819 --> 00:32:57.200 reconsider what we define as life and response. 00:32:57.599 --> 00:32:59.859 His work showed that universal physical laws 00:32:59.859 --> 00:33:02.519 govern reaction across the entire spectrum of 00:33:02.519 --> 00:33:04.960 matter, from a piece of metal to a sensitive 00:33:04.960 --> 00:33:07.500 plant leaf. So what does this all mean for you, 00:33:07.640 --> 00:33:10.319 the learner? It means the seamless wireless communication 00:33:10.319 --> 00:33:13.579 you rely on every single day, powering your phone 00:33:13.579 --> 00:33:17.180 and your Wi -Fi, has deep, forgotten roots. Roots 00:33:17.180 --> 00:33:19.619 in the hands of a dedicated scholar in Calcutta 00:33:19.619 --> 00:33:22.779 in the 1890s who refused to compromise his principles. 00:33:23.079 --> 00:33:25.160 And it means that the plant life around you is 00:33:25.160 --> 00:33:28.059 far more electrically responsive, far more sensitive 00:33:28.059 --> 00:33:30.279 and interconnected with the physical world than 00:33:30.279 --> 00:33:33.039 you likely ever imagined? His legacy isn't just 00:33:33.039 --> 00:33:36.640 his inventions. It's his ethics. He valued scientific 00:33:36.640 --> 00:33:39.180 principle and integrity over profit and patent 00:33:39.180 --> 00:33:42.240 protection. Bose believed in fighting fair and 00:33:42.240 --> 00:33:44.900 accepting defeat as a pathway to true success. 00:33:46.119 --> 00:33:48.519 So given his experience with the coherer controversy, 00:33:49.000 --> 00:33:51.119 where his technical priority was established 00:33:51.119 --> 00:33:53.519 decades after the commercial success of others, 00:33:53.759 --> 00:33:56.819 what contemporary scientific field currently 00:33:56.819 --> 00:33:59.359 battling for recognition or against overwhelming 00:33:59.359 --> 00:34:02.400 commercial pressure might hold a Bose -like revelation 00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:04.960 that history is only just starting to acknowledge? 00:34:05.359 --> 00:34:06.859 Something to think about. Something to think 00:34:06.859 --> 00:34:09.579 about as you connect wirelessly and maybe, you 00:34:09.579 --> 00:34:11.199 know, look a little more closely at the nearest 00:34:11.199 --> 00:34:11.780 house plant.