“The whole edifice of modern physics is built up on the fundamental hypothesis of the atomic or molecular constitution of matter.”

The essence of science is independent thinking, hard work, and not equipment.

It will not be an activity in which all people can participate.

A voyage to Europe in the summer of 1921 gave me the first opportunity of observing the wonderful blue opalescence of the Mediterranean Sea.

I strongly believe that fundamental science cannot be driven by instructional, industrial, governmental or military pressures.

The fundamental importance of the subject of molecular diffraction came first to be recognized through the theoretical work of the late Lord Rayleigh on the blue light of the sky, which he showed to be the result of the scattering of sunlight by the gases of the atmosphere.

It seemed not unlikely that the phenomenon owed its origin to the scattering of sunlight by the molecules of the water.

I have always thought it a great privilege to have as my colleague in the Palit Chair of Chemistry such a distinguished pioneer in scientific research and education in Bengal as Sir Prafulla Ray.

We must teach science in the mother tongue. Otherwise, science will become a highbrow activity.

Towards the end of February 1928, I took the decision of using brilliant monochromatic illumination obtained by the aid of the commercially available mercury arcs sealed in quartz tubes.

The Sensations of Tone.’ As is well known, this was one of Helmholtz’s masterpieces.

All the instruments of percussion known to European science are essentially nonmusical and can only be tolerated in open air music or in large orchestras where a little noise more or less makes no difference.

In the first English class I attended, Prof. E. H. Elliot, addressing me, asked if I really belonged to the Junior B. A. class, and I had to answer him in the affirmative. He then proceeded to inquire how old I was.

Is there any more encouraging sign than to see an Indian, who has never been to a university, like our friend Mr. Asutosh Dey here, for example, carrying out original work and finding it recognized by the foremost societies of the world?

We begin to realise that the molecular scattering of light in liquids may possess an astronomical significance, in fact contribute in an important degree to the observed albedo of the earth.

It was my great good fortune, while I was still a student at college, to have possessed a copy of an English translation of his great work.

And it was this belief which led to the subject becoming the main theme of our activities at Calcutta from that time onwards.

Then, they had insisted that only empirical criteria matter and that they actually did not believe in the reality of sub-atomic entities.

The profoundly ‘atomic’ character of the universe is visible in everyday experience, in raindrops and grains of sand, in the hosts of the living, and the multitude of stars; even in the ashes of the dead.

In Germany, an effort one thousandth the scale of the American was applied to the problem of producing atomic energy that would drive engines.

If we made atomic bombs, we would bring about a terrible change in the world. Who knows what would happen from this?

In America, it was decided to attempt the production of atomic bombs with an effort that would constitute a large part of the collective American war effort.

The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.

Young Baby Boomers were forced to play duck-and-cover in school, in hopes that a desk would protect them from an atomic explosion. It was all bullshit, and they knew it.