The Reluctant Innovator

PRASUN CHAUDHURI
of India, its time for some introspection on Boses alleged naivety about patenting and his unfortunate exit from the race to invent wireless radio. Did Marconi really cheat Bose? Did Bose quit the race out of frustrations and deprivation? Was he really a victim of conspiracy hatched by colonial superpowers? And did he lack a proper scientific temperament? Even though the public assumption that Bose was the real inventor of wireless telegraphy (the term radio came much later) has been prevalent in India for years, the notion was recognised in the scientific world just 11 years ago when the US-based the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)led by some members of Indian originresurrected the work of the forgotten genius. The true origin of the
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t was not that Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose lacked the scientific temperament or was unaware of intellectual property rights. He avoided patents because he firmly believed that scientists should not profit from their research. And he was not alone in his avowed reluctance to patenting. Wilhelm Roentgen, Pierre Curie and several other contemporaries also chose the path of no patenting on moral grounds. The image of Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose etched in the average Indian psyche is of an innovator cheated by the Italian experimenter Guglielmo Marconi. Bose is also believed to be the quintessential absentminded scientist who became a victim of petty politics in the colonial era. On the 150th birth anniversary of the first modern scientist
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Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose

Guglielmo Marconi

mercury coherer with a telephone receiver that was used by Marconi to receive the first transatlantic wireless signal on December 12, 1901, has been investigated and determined. Incontrovertible evidence is presented to show that this novel wireless detection device was invented by Sir J C Bose of Presidency College, Calcutta, India. His epoch-making work was communicated by Lord Rayleigh, FRS, to the Royal Society, London, UK, on March 6, 1899, and read at the Royal Society Meeting of Great Britain on April 27, 1899, wrote Dr P K Bondyopadhyay of NASA Johnson Space Centre in the Proceedings of IEEE in January 1998. Soon after, it was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. Twenty-one months after that disclosure (in February 1901, as the records indicate), Lieutenant L Solari of the Royal Italian Navy, a childhood friend of G Marconis, experimented with this detector device and presented a trivially modified version to Marconi, who then applied for a British patent on the device, adds Bondyopadhyay. According to another paper by Professor A K Sen, a radiophysicist of the University of Calcutta, published in the same issue of Proceedings of IEEE, worlds first wireless communication system for remote control of gun-firing together with ringing a bell, was developed by Bose by the end of 1894. Next
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year, in a public demonstration in Kolkata, Bose ignited gunpowder and rang a bell at a distance using millimetre range wavelength microwaves. The demonstration was held in the Town Hall of Calcutta, in the presence of Sir William Mackenzie, the Lieutenant Governor, and Bose wrote in a Bengali essay, Adrisya Alok (Invisible Light), The invisible light can easily pass through brick walls, buildings etc. Therefore, messages can be transmitted by means of it without the mediation of wires. The system operated over a distance of 23 m through two intervening walls, using a millimeter wave of 5 mm wavelength, corresponding to the frequency of 60 GHz. The reason for the choice of millimeter wave by Bose was primarily due to the advantage of studies of quasi-optical properties of the radio waves within his laboratory of limited size, that was available to him at the Presidency College. However, the components and systems developed by Bose, initially at millimeter wave and subsequently at microwave, were outstanding discoveries made more than 100 years ago, in Calcutta, most of which are now being utilised in a modernised form for earth-space links and remote sensing. Bose was among the first working with diode detectors, then known as self-restoring coherers. In fact, his invention of the ironmercury-iron contact with a telephone
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Lord Rayleigh

detector facilated the reception of the first transatlantic wireless signal of Marconi on December 12, 1901. Undoubtedly, Bose was a pioneer in microwave optics technology and he was the first to show that semiconductor rectifiers could detect radio waves. In addition, his galena receiver was amongst the earliest examples of a lead sulphide photo conducting device. According to Darrel T Emerson of the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) some of his work is surprisingly relevant today. He wrote in the Proceedings of IEEE, He used waveguides, horn antennas, dielectric lenses, various polarisers, and even semi-conductors at frequencies as high as 60 GHZ. Much of his original equipment is still in existence, currently at the Bose Institute, Calcutta, India. Some concepts from his original 1897 papers have been incorporated into a new 1.3-mm multibeam receiver now in use on the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) 12-m telescope. Emerson was even more surprised to find that Bose was concerned about what we call environmental protection today. He wrote, Bose was a pioneer who had apprehended the biological effect of electromagnetic pollution on plant growth and dedicated his final years in this
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area of research. No wonder, Emerson concluded that Bose was much ahead of his time. Boses public demonstration in Kolkatas Town Hall happened a year after American engineer Nikola Tesla made the first public demonstration of radio communication. In Russia, Alexander Stephanovich Popov was performing similar experiments, but had recorded in December 1895 that he was hoping for distant signalling with radio waves. In 1896, the Daily Chronicle of England reported on his experiments, The inventor (J C Bose) has transmitted signals to a distance of nearly a mile and herein lies the first and exceedingly valuable application of this new theoretical marvel. Boses first scientific paper, On polarisation of electric rays by doublerefracting crystals was communicated to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in May 1895, seven years after British physicist Oliver Lodge and German physicist Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves (theoretically predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in 1879). His second paper was communicated to the Royal Society of London by Lord Rayleigh in October 1895. In December 1895, the
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Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

Oliver Lodge

London journal the Electrician (Vol 36) published Boses paper, On a new electropolariscope. At that time, the word coherer, coined by Lodge, was used in the Englishspeaking world for Hertzian wave receivers or detectors. The Electrician (December 1895) readily appreciated Boses coherer. The Englishman (18 January 1896) quoted from the Electrician and commented, Should Professor Bose succeed in perfecting and patenting his Coherer, we may in time see the whole system of coast lighting throughout the navigable world revolutionised by a Bengali scientist working single handed in our Presidency College Laboratory. But Bose planned to perfect his coherer but never thought of patenting it. The 1895 public demonstration by Bose in Kolkata was before Marconis somewhat unsuccessful wireless signalling experiment on Salisbury Plain in England in May 1897. Bose went to London on a lecture tour in 1896 and met Marconi, who was conducting wireless experiments for the British post office. In the same year, in an interview to a British periodical Bose said he was not interested in commercial telegraphy and others can use his research work.
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Boses apathy to patent his inventions and use them for commercial benefits have been thoroughly misunderstood and misinterpreted by the future generations. Contrary to the popular belief, Bose was fully aware of the commercial implication of his research on wireless telegraphy and conscientiously wanted no part of it. After he made public the construction of the coherer in the historical Friday Evening Discourse at the Royal Institution, London, in 1897 a commentary in the journal The Electric Engineer expressed surprise that no secret was at any time made as to its construction, so that it has been open to all the world to adopt it for practical and possibly money-making purposes. Most probably Marconi was one of the spectators of his demonstration and Bose knew very well that the Italian experimenter was hellbent on commercializing wireless telegraphy. An early admirer of the Bose coherer was the British navy, which used it to establish effective radio link between a torpedo boat and friendly ships. On May 17, 1901, just before he was about to deliver a lecture at the Londons Royal Society, one of the top manufacturers of wireless apparatus,
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approached Bose Lodge in a series for signing a of widely reported remunerative demonstrations in agreement as to 1894. There were his new type of claims that receiver. However, Marconi was able Bose declined the to signal for offer. In May 1901, greater distances he wrote to his than anyone else f r i e n d when using the Rabindranath spark-gap and Tagore, A short coherer combitime before my nation, but these lecture, a multihave been m i l l i o n a i r e infamously disproprietor of a puted by Tesla at very famous the patent courts. telegraph comIn 1900 Alexander pany came to Stepanovich meet me with Popov stated to patent forms in the Congress of hand He made an Russian Electrical earnest request to Engineers that: me so that I do not [...] the emission Sir J C Bose, sketch by Satyajit Ray divulge all and reception of valuable research signals by Marconi results in the lecture. There is money in it, by means of electric oscillations [was] nothing let me take out patent for you, he said. You new. In America, Tesla carried the same do not know what money you are throwing experiments in 1893. Tesla stated after being away etc... He proposed to take half of the told of Marconis reported transmission in profit and finance the business in the bargain. December 1901 that Marconi [... was] using This multi-millionaire literally came to me seventeen of my patents. Most of Marconis abegging for making some more profits. My patents were the subject of numerous legal friend, I wish you could see that terrible challenges and there was persistent hankering for money in this country what controversy on whether his contribution was a terrible all-pervasive greed! Once I get sufficient to deserve patent protection, or if sucked in the horrible trap, there would have his devices were too close to the original ones been no way out for me. The proprietor developed by Hertz, Popov, Bose, Tesla and referred to here is probably Major Stephen Lodge to be patentable. Flood Page, the Managing Director of But Marconi never gave up. Feeling Marconis Wireless and Telegraph Company. challenged by sceptics, Marconi prepared Incidentally, immediately after the episode, better organised and well documented tests. Marconi filed for British patent for his wireless He impressed upon the British as well as the apparatus. American people with spectacular It is quite evident that Marconi was literally demonstrations and public talks. To quell on a different wavelength. He built upon the patent challenges he left no stone unturned. discoveries of numerous other experimenters In 1911 the Marconi Company purchased the and established several companies on both Lodge-Muirhead Syndicate, whose primary sides of the Atlantic to market wireless asset was Oliver Lodges 1897 tuning patent. equipment. His original two-circuit He also turned to the Fascist regime in Italy equipment, consisting of a spark-gap who credited Marconi with the first improvised transmitter plus a coherer-receiver, was arrangement in the development of radio. similar to those used by other experimenters, Dispute over Marconis patents continued and in particular to that employed by Oliver for years (to be precise, till 1943, six years
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after his death). Bull insisted, and But unlike Tesla, the latter took Bose neither initiative, Bose contested nor applied for an commented even American patent when Marconi was on the so-called awarded the Detector for Physics Nobel Electrical Disturprize in 1909. No bances in 1901. wonder, Marconi Incidentally, this devoted one and was worlds first half pages patent on a semiacknowledging conductor device Bose in his and the so-called a u t h o r i s e d detector turned out b i o g r a p h y into the precursor Marconi: The Man of semi-conductor And His Wireless revolution of the by O E Dunlap 20th century. The Junior, for application for the providing crucial patent (illustrated support to him by Bose himself) when Marconi was so neatly needed it most. To presented, rebe fair on him, like flecting a thorough many others, he professional made use of approach that he Boses research was granted US which was already Patent No 755,840 published, publicly within three years demonstrated yet without any unprotected by objection. His Sister Nivedita and her signature patent and lectures in the therefore a common property. It would be scientific forum, copious research papers in unfair to grudge Marconi his painstakingly top science journals, demonstrations before achieved practical and commercial success, distinguished scientific audience, when Bose did not raise any objection. acknowledgements from renowned scientists Such a quixotic approach by Bose towards and the US patent stand witness to his sound commercial application of his research scientific temperament. puzzled many of his contemporaries, Speaking in New Delhi in August 2006, at particularly the westerners. His two close a seminar titled Owning the Future: Ideas western friendsMargaret Noble (better and Their Role in the Digital Age, former known as Sister Nivedita) and Sarah secretary of Department of Science and Chapman Bullwere quite annoyed by his Technology, Government of India, rightly apathy towards patenting his invention. Noble said, It was not that Sir Jagadish was was particularly more irritated because she unaware of patents and its advantages. He knew how uphill was Boses task in the was the first Indian to get a US Patent. But colonial environment. She had written, I was his reluctance to any form of patenting is horrified to find the way in which a great well known. innovator could be subjected to continuous For Bose, science had never been a means annoyance and petty difficulties The college to seek any personal benefits. He was happy routine was made as arduous as possible for that his research was recognised in the Royal him, so that he could not have the time he Society, the highest echelon of contemporary needed for investigation. After Noble and science. He was very much against gaining
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any selfish advantage from his inventions. He pursued science as a noble endeavour and believed it can only be applied n the year 1900, Bose read his paper On the Similarity for the benefit of mankind. He Responses of Inorganic and Living Matter before the was also a Swadeshi to the core Paris International Congress of Physicists. It was for the of his heart who never bowed first time in science one compared and parallelised the to pressures from his colonial responses to the excitation of living tissues with those of superiors. Notwithstanding his inorganic matter. His paper, later published in the flawless academic career in Proceedings of the Congress, was considered one of the London and Cambridge, he had most important ones received by the Congress. Swami to overcome a strong racist bias Vivekananda, who was in Paris at that time, went to hear to get inducted as a professor Bose at the Congress. Reflecting on the occasion, Swami of Physics in the Presidency Vivekananda wrote, ... This year Paris is a centre of the College. He had neither financial civilized world, for... there has been an assemblage of nor moral support to pursue eminent men and women from all quarters of the globe. scientific research. There was The master minds of all countries have met today in no laboratory, apparatus or Paris to spread the glory of their respective countries peers. With the help of an by means of their genius. The fortunate man whose untrained tinsmith he devised name the bells of this great centre will ring today will and constructed new apparatus at the same time crown his country also with glory, for his first research on electric before the world. And where art thou, my Motherland, radiation in a small 24 square Bengal, in the great capital swarming with German, foot room in the Presidency French, English, Italian, and other scholars? Who is College. As observed by Sister there to utter thy name? Who is there to proclaim thy Nivedita he worked against existence? From among that white galaxy of geniuses several odds yet refused to get there stepped forth one distinguished youthful hero to reimbursement for his research proclaim the name of our Motherland, Bengal-it was expenses by the British the world-renowned scientist, Dr J C Bose! Alone, the Lieutenant Governor after his youthful Bengali physicist, with galvanic quickness, work was lauded in the Royal charmed the Western audience today with his splendid Society, London. genius; that electric charge infused pulsations of new Boses anti-patent notion and life into the half-dead body of the Motherland! At the aversion for wealth was best top of all physicists today is Jagadis Chandra Bose, an explained by his authorised Indian, and a Bengali! Well done, hero! Whichever biographer Patrick Geddes, countries Dr Bose and his accomplished, ideal wife Simply stated, it is the position may visit, everywhere they glorify India, add fresh of the old rishis of India, of laurels to the crown of Bengal. Blessed pair! n whom he is increasingly recognized by his countrymen as a renewed type, and whose best teaching Michael Faraday, Wilhelm Roentgen, Pierre was ever open to all willing to accept it. There Curie and several other scientists had chosen can be no doubt, as another great the anti-patent path of on moral grounds. The contemporary Indian scientist P.C. Ray had subtle attitude was best reflected in Boses reminded the audience assembled in 1916 inaugural lecture at the foundation of Bose to greet Bose on his knighthood, If he had Institute which he insisted would be a temple taken out patents for the apparatus and of science (Vigyan Mandir): I dedicate instruments which he had invented [and today this Institute-not merely a Laboratory applied them commercially], he could have but a TempleThe advance of science is the made millions by their sale. principal object of this Institute and also Boses apathy for personal benefit may diffusion of knowledge. We are here in the seem incomprehensible to the modern age largest of all the many chambers of this smitten by consumerism. But he was not House of Knowledge-its Lecture Room. In alone in his avowed reluctance to patenting. adding this feature, and on a scale hitherto

The feel-good effect I

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Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy

Patrick Geddes

unusual in a Research Institute, I have sought permanently to associate the advancement of knowledge with the widest possible civic and public diffusion of it; and this without any academic limitations, henceforth to all races and languages, to both men and women alike, and for all time coming. The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand knowledge. They will announce, to an audience of some fifteen hundred people, the discoveries made here, which will be demonstrated for the first time before the public. We shall thus maintain continuously the highest aim of a great seat of learning by taking active part in the advancement and diffusion of knowledge. Through the regular publication of the Transactions of the Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the whole world. The discoveries made will thus become public property. Besides the regular staff there will be selected number of scholars, who by their work have shown special aptitude, and who would devote their whole life to the pursuit of research. They will require personal training and their number must necessarily be limited. But it is not the quantity but quality that is of essential importance. It is my further wish that, as far as the limited accommodation would permit, the facilities of this Institute should be available to workers from all countries. In this I am attempting to carry out the tradition of my country, which, so far back as twenty-five centuries ago welcomed all scholars from
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different parts of the world within the precincts of its ancient seats of learning at Nalanda and at Taxila Not in matter but in thought, not in possessions nor even in attainments but in ideals, is to be found the seed of immortality. Not through material acquisition but in generous diffusion of ideas and ideals can the true empire of humanity be established. Thus to Asoka, to whom belonged this vast empire, bound by the inviolate seas, after he had tried to ransom the world by giving away to the utmost, there came a time when he had nothing more to give, except one half of an Amlaki fruit. This was his last possession, and his anguished cry was that since he had nothing more to give, let the half of the Amlaki be accepted as his final gift. Asokas emblem of the Amlaki will be seen on the cornices of the Institute, and towering above all is the symbol of thunderbolt. It was the Rishi Dadhichi, the pure and blameless, who offered his life that the divine weapon, the thunderbolt, might be fashioned out of his bones to smite evil and exalt righteousness. It is but half of the Amlaki that we can offer now. But the past shall be reborn in a yet nobler future. We stand here today and resume work tomorrow, so that by the efforts of our lives and our unshaken faith in the future we may all help to build the greater India yet to be. n
The author is a senior journalist, presently working as an assistant editor of a Kolkata-based English daily.

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