“The Golden Age of Calcutta Physics: Difficulties in Reconstructing the History”, 2016-12-08 (; backlinks):
Classes started in the newly established Physics Department of Calcutta University Science College in 1916. Raman, Bose and Saha were 3 young members of the small physics faculty consisting of barely half a dozen faculty members.
Within about one decade, 3 extraordinary discoveries came from these young men—the Saha ionization equation in 1920, Bose statistics in 1924, Raman effect in 1928. However, the fortunes of Calcutta University quickly got intertwined with India’s freedom struggle led by Mahatma Gandhi exactly at the same time and the physics group got tragically disrupted. Indian physics never succeeded in reaching that height again.
This paper discusses the difficulties in reconstructing a critical history of this Calcutta school of physics during the very short epoch of unmatched brilliance.