National Science Day 2023: It is celebrated every year on February 28 in India, to commemorate the remarkable work of Indian physicist CV Raman in the field of light scattering. Raman is known as one of the greatest scientists and an inspiration to many. This year’s edition is being celebrated under the theme of “Global Science for Global Wellbeing”, in light of India’s G20 presidency. Theme-based science communication activities are carried out all over the country on the occasion of National Science Day.
National Science Day 2023: History
In 1986, the Government of India, designated February 28 as National Science Day to commemorate the announcement of the discovery of the “Raman Effect”. Conducting a simple experiment, Raman discovered that when a stream of light passes through a liquid, a fraction of the light scattered by the liquid is of a different colour. The discovery was immediately recognised as groundbreaking in the scientific community and became the subject of over 700 papers in the first seven years after its announcement. Ramam was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1930 for the same.
On the occasion of the first National Science Day (28 February 1987), the National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC) had announced the institution of the National Science Popularization awards for recognizing outstanding efforts in the area of science and communication.
National Science Day 2023: Facts & Importance
NCSTC of the Department of Science & Technology (DST) is a nodal agency to support catalyze and coordinate the celebration of the National Science Day throughout the country, particularly in scientific institutions & research laboratories.
DST instituted National Awards in 1987 to stimulate, encourage and recognize outstanding efforts in the area of science popularization and communication and in promoting scientific temper.
Sir CV Raman, who received the highest civilian award from his home country, the Bharat Ratna, in 1954, began his experiments for studying the scattering of light; and thus came the Raman Spectroscopy for observing the vibrational, rotational and other low-frequency modes in a system. This is commonly used in chemical laboratories and serves as the ‘fingerprint’ for the substance from which the light is scattered.
According to the academy citation, the Nobel Prize in Physics 1930 was awarded to Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman “for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him”.