To manage no one, but to manage yourself. Jagadish Chandra Bose (from the series “Real Man in Science”). Creator of the crescograph and one of the inventors of radio Youth and Education

Place of work Presidency College, Calcutta University
Christie College, Cambridge
University of London

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose(there are also variant spellings of the surname - Boshu, Bose, Bose; (eng. Jagadish Chandra Bose, Beng. জগদীশ চন্দ্র বসু Jôgodish Chôndro Boshu; November 30 - November 23) - Bengali scientist-encyclopedist: physicist, biologist, biophysicist, botanist, archaeologist and science fiction writer. He was one of the founders of radio and microwave optics research, made significant contributions to plant science, and established experimental science foundations in the Indian subcontinent. He is considered one of the creators of radio and the father of Bengali science fiction. In 1904, Bose was the first Indian to receive a US patent.

Bose's education began in a public school because his father believed that one must know one's native language before one can learn English, and that one must also know one's own people. Speaking at the Bikrampur conference in 1915, Bose said:

At that time, sending children to English schools was a sign of aristocratic status in society. In the public school to which I was sent, the son of my father's Muslim servant sat to my right, and the son of a fisherman to my left. They were my friends. I listened in fascination to their stories about birds, animals and water creatures. Perhaps it was from these stories that a keen interest in studying the creations of Nature arose in my mind. When I returned home from school with my friends, my mother greeted and fed us all without discrimination. Although she was a faithful lady of the old ways, she never blamed herself for disrespecting the gods by treating these "untouchables" as her children. It was because of my childhood friendship with them that I never considered them “low-caste creatures.”

Bose entered David Hare's School in 1869 and then St. Xavier's College School in Calcutta. In 1875, he passed the entrance examination (equivalent to leaving school) of the University of Calcutta and was admitted to St. Xavier's College Calcutta. There Bos met a Jesuit Eugene Lafon, who played a significant role in the development of his interest in the natural sciences. Bose received his bachelor's degree from the University of Calcutta in 1879.

Bose wanted to go to England to become an Indian statesman. However, his father, being a government official, canceled his plans. He wanted his son to be a scientist who would not “rule anyone, but rule himself.” Bos nevertheless went to England to study medicine at the University of London, but was forced to leave due to poor health. The smell in the autopsy rooms is said to have aggravated his illness.

On the recommendation of Anand Mohan, his brother-in-law and the first Indian Cambridge graduate to finish second in mathematics, he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, to study science. He received a degree in natural history from the University of Cambridge and a BA from the University of London in 1884. Bose's teachers at Cambridge included Lord Rayleigh, Michael Foster, James Dewar, Francis Darwin, Francis Balfour and Sidney Vince. While Bose was a student at Cambridge, Prafulla Chandra Roy was a student at Edinburgh. They met in London and became close friends.

On the second day of a two-day seminar held at the Asia Society on July 28-29, 2008 (Calcutta) on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Jagdish Chandra Bose, Professor Shibaji Raha - Director of the Calcutta Institute. Bose, said in his farewell speech that he personally checked the register of the University of Cambridge to confirm the fact that in addition to the tripos, Bose also received a Master of Arts degree in the same year 1884.

Presidency College

Jagdish Bose

Bose returned to India in 1885 with a letter from the famous economist Henry Fossett to the Viceroy of India, Lord Ripon. At Lord Ripon's request, the Director of Public Instruction, Sir Alfred Croft, appointed Bos as Acting Professor of Physics at Presidency College. The rector of the college, Charles Henry Towne, objected to this appointment, but was forced to agree.

Bos was not provided with equipment to conduct research. In addition, he became a "victim of racism" in terms of pay. At that time, the Indian professor was paid 200 rupees per month, while his European colleague received 300 rupees. Since Bose was only acting, he was offered a salary of only 100 rupees per month. Possessing a sense of self-esteem and national pride, Bos chose a wonderful new form of protest: he refused to receive a salary. In fact, he continued to work for three years without paying any salary at all. Eventually, both Croft and Towney recognized Bos's teaching talents and noble character. He was given a permanent position as a professor with a lump sum payment of the full amount for the past three years of teaching.

Presidency College did not have its own laboratory at that time. Bos conducted his research in a small (2.23 m²) room. He made equipment for his research with the help of one inexperienced tinsmith. Sister Nivedita wrote:

I was horrified to watch how a great worker was constantly distracted from serious work and forced to solve minor problems... The work schedule in college for him was set as difficult as possible, so that he did not have time for research.

After the daily routine work, which he performed with great conscientiousness, he carried out research deep into the night.

In addition, the colonial policy of the British government was not conducive to attempts at original research. Bos used his hard-earned money to buy equipment to conduct his experiments. Within a decade of appearing at Presidency College, Bose became a pioneer in the nascent field of wireless wave research.

Marriage

In 1887, Bose married Abala - the daughter of the famous reformer Brahma Durga Mohandas. Abala was awarded a Bengal Government Scholarship in 1882 to study medicine in Madras, but did not complete her studies due to ill health. At the time of their marriage, Bose's financial situation, due to his refusal to receive a meager salary and also due to his father's small amount of debt, was deplorable. The newlyweds suffered hardships, but managed to survive and ultimately repaid the debts of Bos' father. Bose's parents lived for several years after their debts were paid.

Radio Research

A remarkable feature of Bos's work was his understanding of the inconvenience of working with long-wave radiation and conducting research in the microwave range with millimeter-level wavelengths (about 5 mm).

In Russia, similar experiments were carried out by A. S. Popov. Notes from Popov's reports in December 1895 indicate that he hoped to achieve wireless transmission of radio signals.

Bose's first scientific work, “On the polarization of electric rays by birefringent crystals,” was reported at the Asiatic Society of Bengal in May 1895 (a year after Lodge’s article was published). His second paper was reported to the Royal Society of London by Lord Rayleigh in October 1895. In December 1895, the London magazine "Electric" (volume 36) published Bos's work "On a new electric polariscope". Back then, the word "coherer", coined by Lodge, was used in the English-speaking world for Hertzian wave receivers or sensors. "Electrician" readily commented on the coherer Bos (in December 1895). The Englishman magazine, January 18, 1896, quoting the Electrician, commented on this event as follows:

Professor Bose succeeded in perfecting and patenting his "Coherer", and in time we will see an entire coastal warning system for the entire shipping world, completely modified by a Bengali scientist working alone in our laboratory at Presidency College.

Bos planned to "improve his coherer" but never thought about patenting it.

In May 1897, two years after Bose's public demonstration in Calcutta, Marconi conducted a radio transmission experiment on Salisbury Plain. Bos was in London on a lecture tour in 1896 and at that time met with Marconi, who was conducting wireless experiments in London for the British Post Office. In an interview, Bos expressed disinterest in commercial telegraphy and suggested that the results of his research should be used by others. In 1899, in a paper given to the Royal Society of London, Bos announced the development of an "iron-mercury-iron coherer with a telephone detector".

Thus, Bos's demonstration of remote wireless signal transmission takes precedence over Marconi's experiments. He was the first to use a semiconductor junction to detect radio waves, and he invented many microwave components that seem familiar and simple today. In 1954, Pearson and Bratton drew attention to the fact that Bos had priority in using a semiconductor crystal as a detector of radio waves. There was virtually no further work in the millimeter wavelength range for almost 50 years. In 1897, Bos wrote to the Royal Association in London about his millimeter wave research carried out in Calcutta. He used waveguides, horn antennas, dielectric lenses, various polarizers, and even semiconductors at frequencies above 60 GHz; much of his original equipment still exists at the Bose Institute in Calcutta. A 1.3 mm multibeam receiver based on his original work in 1897 is now used on the 12-meter radio telescope in Arizona, USA.

Bos and patents

Bos was not interested in patenting his inventions. In his Friday evening talk at the Royal Institution in London, he publicly demonstrated the design of his coherer. So Electric Engineer expressed

It is surprising that Bos did not make a secret of his design, thus revealing it to the whole world, which will allow the coherer to be used in practice and possibly for profit.

Bos declined an offer to sign a fee agreement from a wireless device manufacturer. Sarah Chapman Bull, one of Bos's American friends, persuaded him to apply for a patent for an "electrical disturbance detector." The application was filed on September 30, 1901 and US Patent No. 755,840 was issued on March 29, 1904. Speaking at a seminar in August 2006 in New Delhi Our future: ideas and their role in the digital age Daly IT Chairman Dr. Ramamursi said this about Bose's attitude toward patents:

His reluctance to any form of patenting is well known. He wrote about this in his letter from London to Rabindranath Tagore, dated 17 May 1901. And the reason is not that Jagadish sir did not understand the benefits of patenting. He was the first Indian to receive a US patent (No. 755840) in 1904. Sir Jagadish was not alone in his reluctance to patent. Conrad Roentgen, Pierre Curie and many other scientists and inventors also chose this path for moral reasons.

Bos also noted his views on patents in his opening lecture on November 30, 1917.

Heritage

Bose's place in history is appreciated today. He is credited with the invention of the first wireless sensing device, the discovery and research of millimeter wave electromagnetic waves, and is considered a pioneer in the field of biophysics.

Many of his instruments are still on display and remain largely serviceable, more than 100 years after their creation. They include various antennas, polarizers, waveguides that are used in modern designs today. To commemorate the centenary of his birth in 1958, the JBNSTS educational program was started in West Bengal.

Scientific works

Magazines

In the journal Nature 27 articles by Bos were published.
J.C. Bose. On Elektromotive "Wave accompanying Mechanical Disturbance in Metals in Contact with Electrolyte. Proc. Roy. Soc. 70, 273-294, 1902.
J.C. Bose. Sur la response electrique de la matiere vivante et animee soumise ä une excitation.-Deux proceeds d’observation de la r^ponse de la matiere vivante. Journ. de phys. (4) 1, 481-491, 1902.

Books

Plant response as a means of physiological investigation, 1906
Comparative Electro-physiology: A Physico-physiological Study, 1907
Physiology of the Ascent of Sap, 1923
The physiology of photosynthesis, 1924
The Nervous Mechanisms of Plants, 1926
Plant Autographs and Their Revelations, 1927
Growth and tropical movements of plants, 1928
Motor mechanism of plants, 1928

In Russian translation

Bose, Jagdish Chandra Selected works on plant irritability: In 2 volumes / Ed.-comp. A. M. Sinyukhin; Rep. ed. prof. I. I. Gunar. - Moscow: Science, 1964.

Other sources

J.C. Bose, Collected Physical Papers. New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927
Abyakta (Bangla), 1922

Awards and titles

Notes

BNF ID: Open Data Platform - 2011.
SNAC - 2010.
Internet Speculative Fiction Database - 1995.
Bose Jagdish Chandra // Great Soviet Encyclopedia: [in 30 volumes] / ed. A. M. Prokhorov - 3rd ed. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969.
A versatile genius Archived February 3, 2009. , Frontline 21 (24), 2004.
Chatterjee, Santimay and Chatterjee, Enakshi, Satyendranath Bose, 2002 reprint, p. 5, National Book Trust, ISBN 81-237-0492-5
A. K. Sen (1997). "Sir J.C. Bose and radio science", Microwave Symposium Digest 2 (8-13), p. 557-560.
India - the cradle of plant research Archived September 5, 2010 on the Wayback Machine
Mahanti, Subodh Acharya Jagadis Chandra Bose (undefined) . Biographies of Scientists. Vigyan Prasar, Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Retrieved March 12, 2007. Archived April 13, 2012.
Mukherji, Visvapriya, Jagadish Chandra Bose, second edition, 1994, pp. 3-10, Builders of Modern India series, Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, ISBN 81-230-0047-2
Murshed, Md Mahbub Bose, (Sir) Jagadish Chandra (undefined) . Banglapedia. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. Retrieved March 12, 2007. Archived April 13, 2012.
Jagadish Chandra Bose (undefined) . People. calcuttaweb.com. Retrieved March 10, 2007. Archived April 13, 2012.

To the north of the main building of the University of Calcutta stands a building of gray and red stone, built in pre-Islamic Indian style. This building is called by the local population as the “Indian Temple of Wisdom”, and on its facade it is written: “This temple is sanctified by the feet of God because it has brought happiness to India and the whole world.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose next to his device
on studying the properties of electromagnetic waves.
English Royal Society, 1896

Upon entering this building, you immediately come across glass display cases containing amazing instruments made at the beginning of the 19th century in order to study the behavior of plants using measurements of one millionth of a millimeter. These instruments are silent witnesses to the inventive genius of the great Bengali scientist - physicist, physiologist, psychologist in one person - Jagadish Chandra Bose1, who made more discoveries in the field of plant physiology than any of his predecessors, and perhaps more than anyone from followers.

Bose Institute building in Kolkata, India. 1920

The building described above was built by Jagadish Chandra Bose, which today is called the Bose Institute.2 Bose’s services to science are so great that the Encyclopedia Britannica, even half a century after his death, wrote that Bose’s discoveries were ahead of his time by many decades, and that even today science is not able to evaluate all the works of this great Indian scientist.
Bose studied physics, chemistry, and botany in England. As a professor he taught physics at Presidency College Calcutta. In his free time from his main job, he did his own research. At his disposal were only personal funds from a small teaching salary and a small utility room of the college building, which served him as a laboratory. The research began in 1894. Bose wanted to improve Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's apparatus,3 which transmitted radio waves.
While another Italian physicist, Marconi,4 was still experimenting with wireless transmission, Bose was already demonstrating wireless communication to the Calcutta public. In 1895, a year before Marconi patented his discovery of wireless communication in Europe, Bose demonstrated at the Calcutta City Hall before a meeting of the local secular society his invention, with the help of which at a distance of 23 meters - through two rooms - through the wireless transmission of radio waves it was several electrical relays were activated, one of which set the metal ball in motion, another pulled the trigger of the pistol, and the third ignited a small fuse that exploded a small mound of earth.

After these public demonstrations, the British Royal Society [English Academy of Sciences] became interested in Bose's work. Bose's works began to be published in scientific journals in England. After the publication of his paper "Determination of the Wavelength of Electromagnetic Radiation", Bose was awarded a Doctorate in Physics from the University of London, and the British Royal Society provided financial grants to Bose to continue his research.
Bose used every moment free from teaching at college for free searches. So in 1899, Bose accidentally encountered the strange behavior of his electromagnetic wave receiver, which after some time changed its characteristics - as if getting tired. And after a pause - as if after a rest - he again showed the same characteristics. This behavior of the metal device gave Boche the idea that metals, like people, can get tired and require regenerative rest. After some interesting experiments, Bose was able to discover that the behavior of “non-living” metals and “living” organisms is very similar to each other.
The curves of the graphs recording the reaction of slightly heated magnetic iron were remarkably similar to the graphs of irritability in animal muscle tissue. Both subjects showed a decrease in power if they were subjected to overvoltage. And at the same time, both the metal and the muscles were equally restored after they were immersed in warm water or subjected to a gentle massage. Boche also discovered the same behavior in other metals.
During these experiments, Bose discovered that if one part of the metal was etched with acid and then polished until all traces of the chemical treatment were removed, that part would exhibit certain properties that the part of the metal that had not been acid treated would not exhibit. Bose believed that the processed parts of the metal somehow retained the memory of the acid reaction. For example, Bose found that Potassium completely loses its ability to recover if it is treated with certain materials. This reaction is comparable to treating muscle fibers with some kind of poison.
Observing the different reactions of metals, Bose came up with the idea of making comparative experiments on plants. Plants, according to existing prejudice, do not have a nervous system capable of transmitting impulses of irritation. This did not stop Bose - he collected several fallen chestnut leaves, experimented with them and found that they reacted to irritations in the same way as metals and muscles. Excited by his discovery, Bose hurried to the nearest food merchant, bought from him various vegetables, which at first glance gave the impression of being the most dumb and insensitive creations of nature, but which later turned out to be the most sensitive and emotional creatures!
Bose later discovered that plants could be anesthetized with chloroform in the same way as animals, and that plants also recovered from anesthesia after some time. In this way, Bose euthanized one huge coniferous tree, replanted it, after which it successfully took root in a new place, which was a great surprise to those around him, because... It is widely known that this type of tree dies after transplantation.

The recording plate of the device, showing the fatigue of the metal to electrical stimulation.

One day, the secretary of the Royal Society came to Bose's London laboratory to personally look at Bose's experiments. When the learned secretary saw various plates with graphs, he exclaimed in surprise: “Sir Bose, what is unusual here? Ordinary graphs reflecting the reaction of muscle tissue to irritation.” After which Bose looked intently at his English colleague and calmly said: “These graphs reflect the reaction of the metal zinc.” The secretary froze in surprise: “What did you say? Zinc?” When the secretary went away in surprise, Bose showed him his experiments on studying the reactions of metals. As a result of this conversation, Bose was invited by the Royal Society of England to give a lecture on his work on metals, which he did on May 10, 1901. To his surprise, Bose was received very friendly and attentively. But a month later, at a follow-up report, Bose was brutally attacked.
Sir John Bourdon-Sanderson, an authoritative professor in the field of physiology, initially expressed admiration for Bose's work, but immediately reproached him that Bose, with his studies of metals and plants, was intruding into someone else's field, namely physiology. Then Sir John expressed complete distrust of the results of Bose's experiments on recording electrical signals in plants, which, in Sir John's opinion, simply cannot detect the same reaction as animal muscle tissue, because. he himself had personally carried out the same experiments for many years without success. At the end of his speech, Sir John demanded that Boucher reconsider the title and topic of his report.
Bose's response was sincere indignation at the unfair accusation of Sir John, for not one of the experimental facts shown by Bose was refuted from a scientific point of view, but instead Bose heard from Sir John only pressure with his authority on Bose's free scientific research. He called on all members of the Royal Society to defend the freedom and impartiality of scientific research, and insisted on publishing their work unchanged. Unfortunately, Sir John's influence in the Royal Society of England was very strong, so the publication of Bose's work did not take place that year.
Oxford professor and specialist in plant physiology, Sir Sidney Howard Vince, learned about Bose's dispute with Sir John. He found Bose and asked him to show him experiments with plants. At the appointed time, Sir Vince, accompanied by several other scientists, arrived at Boche's London laboratory. When the arrivals saw how the plants reacted to irritations, one of them exclaimed: “The director of the Institute of Botany at the British Museum would give several years of his life to see these experiments!” Another guest, who was the scientific secretary of the London Scientific Botanical Society, immediately expressed a desire to publish Bose's work, and in addition, invited Bose to publicly demonstrate his experiments to members of the botanical society, which was later done with great success for Bose.

Phytograph, with the help of which Bose studied the microscopic movements of plants. The figure shows: A - cups with solutions; B - electric battery for activating the electromagnet M, which simultaneously attracts the writing lever to the glass plate G, which is covered with soot; C - clock mechanism, which, through a cable T, drives the recording glass plate; S - thin thread.

Although most plants showed almost instantaneous responses to external stimuli by transmitting electrical impulses, there was no movement visible to the human eye. And only when Bose thoroughly studied the behavior of Mimosa pudica, which demonstrated not only electrical impulses, but also rapid movement of leaves, did Bose come to the conclusion that other plants have the same reaction, only in a very reduced form. To make these microscopic movements visible, Bose constructed a rather complex mechanical apparatus, consisting of a system of levers designed to increase the microscopic movements of plants. With the help of this apparatus, Bose clearly proved that plants exhibit exactly the same characteristics as animals. The results of these new experiments were published by Boche in 1902 in the book "Response In The Living And Non-living" (Reaction of Living and Non-Living Organisms), which became the first of a whole series of books on this topic.
Bose set out to study the mechanism of mechanical movements, which had the same characteristics in both plants and animals. It is known that plants breathe without having lungs, that plants digest nutrients without having a stomach, that plants move without having muscles. Following this analogy, Bose showed that plants, without having an animal nervous system, still respond to stimuli, like higher animals.
Bose saw the only way to achieve a discernible reaction from plants in their strong irritation, sometimes reaching a state of shock. “We must find such a force,” wrote Bose, “that will force the plants to respond. In addition, it is necessary to find tools and ways that can translate the language of plants into signs that we understand.”
Through his work, Bose proved that plant nerve fibers behave like animal nerve tissues. Bose states his views in the following summary: “The vast kingdom of nature consists of various divisions, each of which has its own gates. Physicists, chemists, biologists all penetrate into the secrets of nature through their gates. Therefore, scientists of different disciplines think that they are exploring their field, which in no way concerns other branches of science. Because of this one-sided approach, science has been divided into inorganic, organic and sensitive areas. But we must forget that the goal of all research is to know the truth in its entirety."
Bose's views on the similarity of reactions to stimuli between the plant and animal world encountered severe opposition from reactionary scientists, which forced Bose to construct even more complex instruments that reflected the smallest movements of plants, down to a ten-millionth of a meter. Using electromagnets, mirrors and levers, Boche managed to construct such a device. The results of these works were published in the journals of the Royal Society of England. The work was so convincing that in 1917 Bose was awarded the title of nobility of the British Empire for his scientific services, and a special building for a new institute was erected in his hometown, which after Bose’s death was named after him.

Crescograph. The figure shows: P - plant; S and S" - adjusting screws; C - clock mechanism that moves the glass plate G; R and R" - guide rails for moving the plate.

A new device that amazed the scientific world was called a crescograph or auxanograph. What was new in this device was a system of two levers, and not one, as before. The first lever connected directly to the plant, and the second lever responded to the slightest movement of the first, thereby achieving double scaling, which in total was measured in millionths of a meter. The second lever touched with its tip a glass plate, which was covered with a thin layer of soot. The plate was set into lateral movement by a clock mechanism at regular intervals. Due to this, it was possible to monitor the plant’s reaction over time.
As a result of experiments on plants using a crescograph, Bose discovered that different plants react differently to his touch. Some plants stop their growth after a light touch, while others increase their growth. Bose was puzzled by such a heterogeneous reaction from his green charges. To more accurately verify the results of his research, Bose designed an even more sensitive crescograph, which received an additional level of measurements.
During Bose's lecture tour of Europe, a French philosopher from the Sorbonne University named Henry Bergson said: "Thanks to Bose's wonderful lectures, previously mute plants have turned into the most talkative creatures, revealing to us the secrets of their lives." Bose met a grateful public in Europe, which was familiar with the works of Goethe and Fichner, who, like Bose, defended the theory of the animation of the plant kingdom.

Born in Bengal during the British Raj, Bose graduated from Calcutta Presidency College. Then he studied medicine at the University of London, but could not complete his studies due to health problems. He returned to India and took up a position as professor of physics at Presidency College, University of Calcutta. There, despite racial discrimination and lack of funding and equipment, Bose continued his scientific research. He successfully implemented wireless signal transmission and was the first to use semiconductor junctions to detect radio signals. However, rather than try to commercialize this invention, Bose published his work to allow other researchers to develop his ideas. Subsequently, he conducted pioneering research in the field of plant physiology. He used his own invention, the crescograph, to measure the response of plants to various stimuli, and thus scientifically proved the parallelism between plant and animal tissues. Although Bose patented one of his inventions under pressure from his peers, he was known to be reluctant to pursue any form of patenting. Now, many decades after his death, his contribution to modern science is generally recognized.

Youth and education

Bose was born in Munshiganj district of Bengal (now Bangladesh) on November 30, 1858. His father - Bhagawan Chandra Bose was a Brahmo and leader of the Brahmo Samaj and worked as a representative judge/special assistant commissioner in Fardipur, Bardhaman and other places. His family originated from Rarihal village in Bikrampur (now Munshiganj district of Bangladesh).

At the time, sending children to English schools was an aristocratic status symbol. In the public school to which I was sent, the son of my father's assistant (a Muslim) sat on my right, and the fisherman's son on my left. They were my friends. I listened in fascination to their stories about birds, animals and water creatures. Perhaps these stories created in my mind a keen interest in exploring how Nature works. When I returned home from school with my friends, my mother greeted and fed us all without discrimination. Although she was an orthodox old lady of manners, she never considered herself guilty of irreverence in treating these "untouchables" as her own children. It was because of my childhood friendship with them that I never considered them “low caste creatures.” I never understood the existence of a “problem” of communication between two communities - Hindus and Muslims.

Bose entered Khare School in 1869 and then St. Zaver's College School in Calcutta. In 1875, he passed the entrance examination (equivalent to leaving school) of the University of Calcutta and was admitted to Calcutta's St. Zaver's College. There Bose met the Jesuit Father Eugene Lafont, who played a significant role in developing his interest in the natural sciences. Bose received his bachelor's degree from the University of Calcutta in 1879.

Bose wanted to go to England to become an Indian statesman. However, his father, being a government official, canceled his plans. He wanted his son to be a scientist who would not “rule anyone, but rule himself.” Bose did go to England to study medicine at the University of London, but was forced to leave due to poor health. The smell in the autopsy rooms is said to have aggravated his illness.

On the second day of a two-day seminar held at the Asia Society on July 28-29, 2008 (Calcutta) on the occasion of the 150th birth anniversary of Jagdish Chandra Bose, Professor Shibaji Raha - Director of the Calcutta Institute. Bose, said in his farewell speech that he personally checked the register of the University of Cambridge to confirm the fact that in addition to the tripos, Bose received a Master of Arts degree in the same year 1884.

Presidency College

Bose returned to India in 1885 with a letter from the famous economist Henry Fossett to the Viceroy of India, Lord Ripon. At Lord Ripon's request, the Director of Public Instruction, Sir Alfred Croft, appointed Boucher as Acting Professor of Physics at Presidency College. The rector of the college, Charles Henry Towne, objected to this appointment, but was forced to agree.

Bose was not provided with equipment to conduct research. In addition, he became a “victim of racism” in terms of pay. At that time, the Indian professor was paid 200 rupees per month, while his European colleague received 300 rupees. Since Bose was only acting, he was offered a salary of only 100 rupees per month. Possessing a sense of self-esteem and national pride, Bose chose a wonderful new form as a protest. He refused to receive his salary. In fact, he continued to work for three years without any salary at all. Eventually, both Croft and Towney recognized Bose's teaching talents and noble character. He was given a permanent position as a professor with a lump sum payment of the full amount for the past three years of teaching.

Presidency College did not have its own laboratory at that time. Bose conducted his research in a small (2.23 m?) room. He made equipment for his research with the help of an inexperienced tinsmith. Sister Nivedita wrote:

I was horrified to watch how a great worker was constantly distracted from serious work and forced to solve minor problems... The work schedule in college for him was set as difficult as possible so that he did not have time for research.

After the daily routine of work, which he performed with great conscientiousness, he conducted research deep into the night.

In addition, the colonial policy of the British government was not conducive to attempts at original research. Bose used his hard-earned money to buy equipment to conduct his experiments. Within ten years of appearing at Presidency College, Bose became a pioneer in the nascent field of wireless wave research.

Marriage

In 1887, Bose married Abala, the daughter of the famous reformer Brahma Durga Mohandas. Abala was awarded a Bengal Government Scholarship in 1882 to study medicine at Madras (now Chennai), but did not complete her studies due to poor health. At the time of their marriage, Bose's financial situation, due to his refusal to receive a meager salary and also due to his father's small amount of debt, was deplorable. The newlyweds suffered hardships, but managed to survive and ultimately repaid the debts of Boche's father. Bose's parents lived for several years after their debts were paid.

Radio Research

British theoretical physicist James Maxwell mathematically predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves with different wavelengths. He died in 1879 before he could experimentally test his hypothesis. British physicist Oliver Lodge demonstrated the existence of Maxwell waves by transmitting them over wires in 1887-1888. The German physicist Heinrich Hertz experimentally demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves in free space in 1888. Lodge subsequently continued Hertz's work, giving a commemorative lecture in June 1894 (after Hertz's death) and publishing it as a book. Lodge's work attracted the attention of scientists in various countries, including Bose in India.

A remarkable feature of Bose's work was his understanding of the inconvenience of working with long-wave radiation and conducting research in the microwave range at millimeter-level wavelengths (about 5 mm).

In 1893, Nikola Tesla demonstrates the first open radio communication. A year later, in November 1894 (or 1895), at a public demonstration in Calcutta, Bose lit gunpowder and rang a bell from a distance using millimeter-wave microwave radiation. Lieutenant Governor Sir William Mackenzie witnessed Bose's demonstration at the Calcutta Town Hall. Bose wrote in the Bengali essay "Adrisya Alok" (The Invisible Light):

Invisible light can easily pass through brick walls, buildings, etc. Therefore, messages can be transmitted to them without the mediation of wires.

In Russia, similar experiments were carried out by A. S. Popov. Notes from Popov's reports in December 1895 indicate that he hoped to achieve wireless transmission of radio signals.

Bose's first scientific work, “On the polarization of electric rays by birefringent crystals,” was reported at the Asiatic Society of Bengal in May 1895 (a year after Lodge’s article was published). His second paper was reported to the Royal Society of London by Lord Rayleigh in October 1895. In December 1895, London Magazine Electrician(Vol. 36) published Boche's work "On the New Electro-Polariscope". Then, the word "coherer", coined by Lodge, was used in the English-speaking world for Hertzian wave receivers or sensors. Electrician coherer Bosche readily commented (in December 1895). Magazine Englishman(18 January 1896) quoting Electrician commented on this event as follows:

Professor Bose succeeded in perfecting and patenting his "Coherer", and in time we will see a whole coastal warning system for the entire shipping world, completely modified by a Bengali scientist working alone in our laboratory at Presidency College.

Bose planned to “improve his coherer,” but never thought about patenting it.

In May 1897, two years after Boche's public demonstration in Calcutta, Marconi conducted a radio transmission experiment on Salisbury Plain. Bose was in London on a lecture tour in 1896 and at that time met with Marconi, who was conducting wireless experiments in London for the British Post Office. In an interview, Bose expressed disinterest in commercial telegraphy and suggested that the results of his research should be used by others. In 1899, in a report given to the Royal Society of London, Boche announced the development of " iron-mercury-iron coherer with telephone detector».

Thus, Bose's demonstration of remote wireless signal transmission takes precedence over Marconi's experiments. He was the first to use a semiconductor junction to detect radio waves, and he invented many microwave components that seem familiar and simple today. In 1954, Pearson and Bratton drew attention to the fact that Boche had priority in using a semiconductor crystal as a detector of radio waves. There was virtually no further work in the millimeter wavelength range for almost 50 years. In 1897, Bose wrote to the Royal Association in London about his millimeter wave research carried out in Calcutta. He used waveguides, horn antennas, dielectric lenses, various polarizers, and even semiconductors at frequencies above 60 GHz; much of his original equipment still exists at the Boche Institute in Calcutta. The 1.3 mm multibeam receiver, based on his original work in 1897, is now used on the 12 m radio telescope in Arizona, USA.

Sir Neville Mott, Nobel laureate in 1977 for his contributions to the development of solid-state electronics, noted that:

Jagdish Chandra Bose was at least 60 years ahead of his time

In fact, he foresaw the existence of P-type and N-type semiconductors.

Plant research

After working in the field of radio signal transmission and studying the properties of the microwave range, Bose became interested in plant physiology. In 1927, he created the theory of sap rise in plants, known today as the life theory of sap rise. According to this theory, the rise of sap in plants is initiated by electromechanical pulsations occurring in living cells.

He doubted the correctness of the tension-adhesion theory, which was most popular at that time and is now generally accepted by Dixon and Joly, proposed by them in 1894. Despite the fact that the existence of the phenomenon of back pressure in plant tissues has been experimentally proven, it would be a mistake to completely reject Bose’s hypothesis. Thus, in 1995, Canny experimentally demonstrated pulsations in the endodermal junctions of living cells (the so-called “CP Theory”). When studying the irritability of plants, Bose, using the crescograph he invented, showed that plants respond to various influences as if they had a nervous system similar to the nervous system of animals. In this way he discovered parallelism between plant and animal tissues. His experiments showed that plants grow faster when pleasant music is played, and their growth slows down when sounds that are too loud or harsh are played. His main contribution to biophysics is the demonstration of the electrical nature of the transmission of various influences (cuts, chemical reagents) in plants. Before Bose, it was believed that the response to stimuli in plants was of a chemical nature. Bose's assumptions were experimentally proven. He also studied for the first time the effect of microwaves on plant tissue and the corresponding changes in the membrane potential of the cell, the mechanism of the seasonal effect in plants, the effect of a chemical inhibitor on plant stimuli, the effect of temperature, etc. Based on the results of an analysis of the nature of the change membrane potential of plant cells under various conditions, Boche argued that:

plants can feel pain, understand affection, etc.

Science fiction

In 1896 Bose wrote Niruddesher Kahini- the first major work in Bengali science fiction. He later published the story Polatok Tufan in the book Obbakto. He was the first science fiction author to write in Bengali.

Bose and patents

Bose was not interested in patenting his inventions. In his Friday evening talk at the Royal Institution in London, he publicly demonstrated his coherer design. So Electric Engineer expressed

It is surprising that Bose did not make a secret of his design, thus revealing it to the whole world, which will allow the coherer to be used in practice and possibly for profit.

Bose declined an offer to sign a fee agreement from the wireless device maker. Sarah Chapman Bull, one of Boche's American friends, persuaded him to apply for a patent for an “electrical disturbance detector.” The application was filed on September 30, 1901, and US Patent No. 755,840 was issued on March 29, 1904. Speaking at a seminar in New Delhi in August 2006 Our future: ideas and their role in the digital age Daly IT Chairman Dr. Ramamursi said this about Bose's attitude toward patents:

His reluctance to any form of patenting is well known. He wrote about this in his letter from London to Rabindranath Tagore, dated May 17, 1901. And the reason is not that Jagadish sir did not understand the benefits of patenting. He was the first Indian to receive a US patent (No. 755840) in 1904. Sir Jagadish was not alone in his reluctance to patent. Conrad Roentgen, Pierre Curie and many other scientists and inventors also chose this path for moral reasons.

Bose also noted his views on patents in his inaugural lecture at the opening of the Bose Institute on November 30, 1917.

Heritage

Scientific works

In the journal Nature Boche published 27 articles.
J.C. Bose. Sur la response electrique de la matiere vivante et animee soumise? une excitation.-Deux proceeds d’observation de la r^ponse de la matiere vivante. Journ. de phys. (4) 1, 481-491, 1902.
J.C. Bose. On Elektromotive "Wave accompanying Mechanical Disturbance in Metals in Contact with Electrolyte. Proc. Roy. Soc. 70, 273-294, 1902.

The Nervous Mechanisms of Plants, 1926
Plant Autographs and Their Revelations, 1927
Plant response as a means of physiological investigation, 1906
Researches on Irritability of Plants, 1913
Motor mechanism of plants, 1928
Response in the Living and Non-living, 1902
The physiology of photosynthesis, 1924
Comparative Electro-physiology: A Physico-physiological Study, 1907
Growth and tropical movements of plants, 1928
Physiology of the Ascent of Sap, 1923

Abyakta (Bangla), 1922
J.C. Bose, Collected Physical Papers. New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927

Awards and titles

Founding fellow of the National Institute of Sciences of India (now renamed as the Indian National Science Academy)
Fellow of the Royal Society (1920)
Laureate of the Order of the Star of the Indian Empire (CIE) (1903)
Member of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, 1928
Knighthood, 1917
The Indian Botanical Gardens, Howrah was renamed as the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Botanical Garden on June 25, 2009 in honor of Jagadish Chandra Bose.
President of the 14th session of the Indian Science Congress in 1927.
Recipient of the Order of the Star of India (CSI) (1912)
Member of the League of Nations" Committee for Intellectual Cooperation

Additional sources

The life and work of Sir Jagadis C. Bose by Patrick Geddes, Longmans London, 1920

External links

ECIT Bose article at www.infinityfoundation.com
JC Bose a Hindu pioneer of radio waves Examiner - July 9, 2009
INSA publication
Biography at Calcuttaweb
Acharya Jagadis Chandra Bose at www.vigyanprasar.gov.in
Article on Jagadish Chandra Bose, Banglapedia
Radio history
JC Bose: 60 GHz in the 1890s
Vigyan Prasar article
India's Great Scientist, J.C. Bose
Bose Institute Website
K. Nag. Researches and discoveries of Sir J. C. Bos. Aryavarta. 1996. Initial release
J., Mervis (1998). “HISTORY OF SCIENCE: Bose Credited With Key Role in Marconi's Radio Breakthrough” (full text). Science 279 (5350): 476. DOI:10.1126/science.279.5350.476. Science Magazine on Bose priority
Frontline article
Bose, Jagdish Chandra at Project Gutenberg. (Project Gutenberg)
SIR JAGADISH CHANDRA BOSE: the unsung Hero of Radio Communication at web.mit.edu J. C. Bose, The Unsung hero of radio communication
IEEEGHN: Jagadish Chandra Bose at www.ieeeghn.org

A healthy lifestyle is good! And here everyone chooses for themselves what is good and what is bad. I just want to draw the attention of those vegetarians who became such because they do not want to eat animals for ethical reasons: they say animals experience pain, etc.

Antonello da Messina. Saint Sebastian. Where history is happening, serene life flows nearby

Perhaps it’s best for me to start with one detective story. It was told to the world by the American criminologist Baxter.

Baxter, by the nature of his direct professional activities, conducted experiments with the so-called lie detector. Readers have probably heard a lot about this psychological method of solving crimes. It is inappropriate to describe it in detail. This is a system of thin electronic devices that can be used to record emotional processes occurring in a person. If a criminal suspect shows agitation when shown an object related to the crime, the likelihood of his guilt increases.

One day, Baxter came up with a highly unusual idea: to put sensors on the leaf of a houseplant. He wanted to find out whether an electrical reaction would occur in the plant at the moment when a living creature died nearby.

The experiment was organized as follows. A live shrimp was placed on a board fixed above a vessel of boiling water. This tablet was turned over in a minute unknown even to the experimenter himself. For this purpose, a random number sensor was used. The machine worked - the shrimp fell into boiling water and died. A mark appeared on the lie detector tape. This tape was used to record the electrical state of a plant leaf. The experiments recorded: the flower leaf at the moment of the death of the shrimp changed the course of electrical processes.

We, people of the turbulent events of the 20th century, are surprised by many things: too many new and unexpected things come to us from the pages of newspapers and magazines. And yet, few people will be completely indifferent to Baxter’s results. Plants are witnesses to a crime! This is perceived as some kind of grandiose sensation. In the form of just such a sensation (which is hard to believe, but very interesting to read about), this fact made the rounds in newspapers and magazines in many countries. And in this noise of great sensation, only a narrow circle of specialists remembered that similar experiments had already been carried out and that it was those long-standing experiments that were of fundamental importance for the whole complex of modern sciences.

Research of the great Indian scientist J.C. Boss [Jagadish Chandra Bose, 1858 - 1937 - Indian botanist and physicist.], the work of Soviet researchers Professor I.I. Gunar and V.G. Karmanov established: plants have their own sense organs, they are able to perceive, process and store information about the outside world. The enormous significance of these remarkable studies for various industries will only be fully appreciated in the future.“Psyche” (in a very special, not yet precisely defined sense of the word) appears to exist in living cells that lack a nervous system.

.Can you believe it?..For many centuries, researchers believed that plants do not need a psyche

: they do not have those organs of movement that animals have even at an early stage of their development. And since there are no organs of movement, it means there is no behavior: after all, mental processes are needed to control it. It is in the cells of this nervous system, in neurons, that processes such as perception, memory and everything that is commonly called the terms “psyche”, “mental activity” coming from ancient times, occur. True, the responses of plants to the influences of the external world have long been known. The sundew, for example, responds to the touch of insects; it catches them with the help of special motor devices. Some plants open their flowers when exposed to light. All this is very similar to the simple reflexes of animals in response to external irritation. It seems... but...

And suddenly it turns out that plants are able to distinguish quite complex objects from the outside world. And not only to distinguish, but also to respond to them by changing electrical potentials. Moreover, in form and nature, these electrical phenomena are close to the processes occurring in a person’s skin when he experiences a psychological event. From the point of view of these truly stunning scientific data,

The results of the American criminologist Baxter become quite clear. Judging by the publications, his attempt was quite successful. It can be assumed that flowers and trees imprint the criminal in their language, record him, and remember the suffering of the victim.

The flower sympathizes

But first of all, I would like to talk about those studies on plant psychology in which I myself was a participant.

These search experiments were started by a member of our laboratory, V.M. Fetisov. It was he who introduced me to publications about the Baxter effect. He brought a flower from home, an ordinary geranium, and began experiments with it. In the opinion of colleagues from neighboring laboratories, our experiments seemed more than strange. Indeed, an encephalograph was used to experiment with flowers. It is usually used to study electrical phenomena in human brain cells. Using the same device, you can record the electrical reaction of the skin, it is called the “galvanic skin reflex” (GSR). It occurs in a person and a moment of excitement, when solving mental problems, psychological stress.

In order to record a person’s GSR using an encephalograph, it is enough, for example, to place two electrodes: one on the palm, the other on the back of the hand. An ink-writing device is built into the encephalograph; its pen writes a straight line on the tape. When, at the moment of a psychological event, a difference in electrical potential occurs between the electrodes, the pen of the device begins to move up and down. The straight line on the tape gives way to waves. This is the human galvanic skin reflex.

In experiments with plants, we installed the electrodes of the device in the same way as in experiments with humans. Only instead of a human hand, the surfaces of a sheet were used.

Who knows what the fate of psychological and botanical experiments would have been if a graduate student from Bulgaria, Georgy Angushev, had not appeared in our laboratory. He studied at the graduate school of the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after V.I. Lenin. Now that G. Angushev has brilliantly defended his Ph.D. thesis in psychology and left for his homeland, all the laboratory employees remember him as a talented researcher and a good, charming person. If a plant is generally capable of responding to a person’s psychological states, then most likely it will respond to a strong emotional experience. What about fear, joy, sadness? How can I order them? Under hypnosis, our difficulties could be eliminated. A good hypnotist is able to awaken in the person he has put to sleep the most varied and, moreover, quite strong experiences. The hypnotist is able to turn on the emotional sphere of a person. This is exactly what was required for our experiments.

So, the protagonist of the experiments is student Tanya. She was seated in a comfortable chair eighty centimeters from the flower.

Electrodes were placed on this flower. V.M. Fetisov “wrote” on the encephalograph. Our subject was distinguished by an unusually lively temperament and immediate emotionality. Perhaps it was this open emotionality, the ability to quickly arise and quite strong feelings that ensured the success of the experiments. So, the first series of experiments.

The subject was told that she was very beautiful. A joyful smile appears on Tanya's face. She shows with all her being that the attention of others really makes her happy. In the midst of these pleasant experiences, the flower's first reaction was recorded: the pen drew a wavy line on the tape.

Immediately after this experiment, the hypnotist said that a strong cold wind suddenly blew in, that it suddenly became very cold and uncomfortable around. Tanya's facial expressions changed dramatically. The face became sad-sad. She began to tremble, like a person who suddenly finds himself in the cold in light summer clothes. The flower was not slow to react by changing the line to this too.

After these two successful experiments, a break was made, the tape of the device continued to move, and the pen continued to record a straight line of the flower. He added another evil person to the cold wind... he is approaching our test subject. The suggestion worked quickly - our Tatyana became worried. The flower immediately responded: instead of a straight line, a wave characteristic of a galvanic skin reaction appeared from under the pen of the device. And then Georgy Angushev immediately switched to pleasant feelings. He began to suggest that the cold wind had stopped, that the sun had come out, that it was warm and pleasant around. And instead of an evil man, a cheerful little boy approaches Tatiana. The facial expression of the tested sheaf changed. The flower again gave its wave to the GSR.

...So what is next? Then we received an electrical reaction from the flower as many times as we wanted. At our signal, in a completely random and arbitrary order, Angushev instilled in his subject either positive or negative feelings. The other flower tested invariably gave us the “needed” reaction.

The critical assumption that this connection between human feelings and the reaction of a flower does not really exist, that the reaction of plants is caused by random influences, was rejected by special testing. In between experiments, we turned on an encephalograph with electrodes on the flower at different times. The encephalograph worked for hours and did not detect the reaction recorded in the experiments. In addition, the electrodes of other channels of the encephalograph were hung here in the laboratory. After all, somewhere nearby there could be electrical interference, and the fullness on the tape of our device could be the result of this purely electrical influence.

We repeated our experiments many times and still with the same results. An experiment was also made with lie detection, which is widely used in foreign criminology. This experiment was organized like this. Tatyana was asked to think of any number from one to ten. The hypnotist agreed with her that she would carefully hide the planned number. After that, they began to list numbers from one to ten. She greeted the name of each number with a decisive “No!” It was difficult to guess what number she had in mind... The flower gave a reaction to the number “5” - the same one that Tanya had in mind.

“...Complete detachment from templates”

So, a flower and a person. This may sound paradoxical, but the reactions of flower cells should help to understand the work of human brain cells. The patterns of brain processes underlying the human psyche are still far from being fully revealed. So we have to look for new research methods. The unusual nature of “flower” methods should neither confuse nor stop the researcher; A Suddenly, with the help of such methods, it will be possible to take at least a small step in revealing the secrets of the brain.

Here I recall one letter from Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, unfortunately little known to a wide circle of readers.

This letter was written back in March 1914 on the occasion of the opening of the Moscow Institute of Psychology. It was addressed to the founder of the institute, the famous Russian psychologist, professor at Moscow University G.I. Chelpanov. Here is this wonderful document. “After the glorious victories of science over the dead world, the turn came for the development of the living world, and in it the crown of earthly nature - the activity of the brain. The task at this last point is so inexpressibly great and complex that all the resources of thought are required: absolute freedom, complete detachment from patterns, the greatest possible variety of points of view and modes of action, etc., to ensure success. All workers of thought, no matter from which side they approach the subject, will all see something to their share, and«

everyone's shares will sooner or later add up to the solution of the greatest problem of human thought... And then follow significant words addressed to the psychologist, words showing the true attitude of the great physiologist to psychological science:

“That is why I, who exclude the slightest mention of subjective states in my laboratory work on the brain, sincerely greet your Psychological Institute and you, as its creator and creator, and warmly wish you complete success.” It is not difficult to see how modern this letter, written more than half a century ago, sounds.[Now it’s almost a hundred years ago...]

The call of the great scientist to search for new methods of ways to reveal the secrets of the brain, in solving the “greatest task of human thought” is especially relevant now, when representatives of different branches of science are taking an integrated approach to the work of the brain, this, in the words of I.P. Pavlov, is the crown of the earth nature. The experience of the development of natural science, especially physics, has shown that one should not be afraid of new discoveries, no matter how paradoxical these discoveries may seem at first glance.

What did the flowers say...: a living plant cell (flower cell) reacts to processes occurring in the nervous system (human emotional state). This means that there is a certain commonality of processes that occur in plant cells and in nerve cells.

Here it is advisable to remember that in every living cell, including flower cells, the most complex information processes are carried out. For example, ribonucleic acid (RNA) reads information from a special genetic record and transfers this information to synthesize protein molecules. Modern research in cytology and genetics indicates that every living cell has a very complex information service.

What can a flower’s reaction to a person’s emotional state mean? Perhaps there is a certain connection between two information services - the plant cell and the nervous system? The language of a plant cell is related to the language of a nerve cell. And in experiments with hypnosis, these completely different groups of cells communicated with each other in this same language. They, these different living cells, turned out to be able to “understand” each other.

But animals, as is now commonly believed, arose later than plants, and nerve cells are later formations than plant cells? From this we can conclude that the information service of animal behavior arose from the information service of the plant cell.

One can imagine that in a plant cell, in the cell of our flower, processes akin to mental processes occur in an undifferentiated, compressed form. This is precisely what the results of J.C. Boss, I.I. Gunar and others testify to.

When, in the process of the development of living things, creatures appeared that had organs of movement and were capable of independently obtaining their own food, another information service was needed. She had a different task - to build more complex models of objects in the outside world.

Thus, it turns out that the human psyche, no matter how complex it may be, our perception, thinking, memory - all this is just a specialization of that information service that already takes place at the level of the plant cell. This conclusion is very important. [It allows us to approach the analysis of the problem of the origin of the nervous system. One such statement was enough to come into conflict with the tenets of “dialectical materialism” and to be, if not burned at the stake, like Giordano Bruno, then to lose his scientific rank, like Galileo Galilei, is quite possible. Before this, of the great scientists of the 20th century, only Kurt Gödel, who said that tying thinking to matter is the prejudice of the century, dared to say this. Those. thought itself is an objective reality, which means that in itself, according to the definition of materialists, it is material]. Thus, a novel or poem, with all the characters and their experiences, cannot be perceived by readers if there are no sheets of paper with typographical icons. What is the informational matter of mental processes, for example, human thought?

At different stages of scientific development, different scientists give different answers to this question. Some researchers consider the work of a nerve cell as an element of a cybernetic computing machine as the basis of the psyche. Such an element can be either enabled or disabled. With the help of this binary language of on and off cell elements, the brain, according to some scientists, is able to encode the external world.

An analysis of the work of the brain shows, however, that with the help of the binary code theory it is impossible to explain the entire complexity of the processes taking place in the cerebral cortex.

It is known that some cortical cells reflect light, others - sound, and so on. Therefore, a cell in the cerebral cortex is capable of not only being excited or inhibited, but also copying various properties of objects in the surrounding world. What about the chemical molecules of a nerve cell? These molecules can be found both in a living creature and in a dead creature. As for mental phenomena, they are a property only of living nerve cells. All this leads to the idea of subtle biophysical processes that occur in intracellular molecules. Apparently, it is with their help that psychological coding occurs. Of course, the thesis about information biophysics can still be considered as a hypothesis, moreover, a hypothesis that will not be so easy to prove.[The presence of this biophysics was proved a quarter of a century later by the mathematician, a leading specialist in quantum mechanics, Roger Penrose. I recently posted an article where a Russian programmer enters into a debate with him.]

Indeed, the irritant for the flower in the experiments described may be a certain biophysical structure. Its release outside the human body occurs at the moment when a person experiences an acute emotional state. This biophysical structure carries information about a person. Well, then... the pattern of electrical phenomena in a flower is similar to the pattern of electrical phenomena in human skin.

I emphasize again and again: all this is still only a field of hypotheses. One thing is certain: studies of plant-human contact can shed light on some fundamental problems of modern psychology. Flowers, trees, leaves, to which we are so accustomed, will contribute to the solution of that greatest task of human thought, which I. P. Pavlov wrote about.

Upon entering this building, you immediately come across glass display cases containing amazing instruments made at the beginning of the 19th century in order to study the behavior of plants using measurements of one millionth of a millimeter. These instruments are silent witnesses to the inventive genius of the great Bengali scientist - physicist, physiologist, psychologist rolled into one - Jagadish Chandra Bose, who made more discoveries in the field of plant physiology than any of his predecessors, and perhaps more than anyone from followers.

The building described above was built by Jagadish Chandra Bose, which today is called the Bose Institute. Bose's services to science are so great that the Encyclopedia Britannica, even half a century after his death, wrote that Bose's discoveries were ahead of his time by many decades, and that even today's science is not able to appreciate all the works of this great Indian scientist.

Bose studied physics, chemistry, and botany in England. As a professor he taught physics at Presidency College Calcutta. In his free time from his main job, he did his own research. At his disposal were only personal funds from a small teaching salary and a small utility room of the college building, which served him as a laboratory. The research began in 1894. Bose wanted to improve Heinrich Rudolf Hertz's devices, which transmitted radio waves.

While another Italian physicist, Marconi, was still experimenting with wireless transmission, Bose was already demonstrating wireless communication to the Calcutta public. In 1895, a year before Marconi patented his discovery of wireless communication in Europe, Bose demonstrated at the Calcutta City Hall before a meeting of the local secular society his invention, with the help of which at a distance of 23 meters - through two rooms - through the wireless transmission of radio waves it was several electrical relays were activated, one of which set the metal ball in motion, another pulled the trigger of the pistol, and the third ignited a small fuse that exploded a small mound of earth.

Bose used every moment free from teaching at college for free searches. So in 1899, Bose accidentally encountered the strange behavior of his electromagnetic wave receiver, which after some time changed its characteristics - as if getting tired. And after a pause - as if after a rest - he again showed the same characteristics. This behavior of the metal device gave Boche the idea that metals, like people, can get tired and require regenerative rest. After some interesting experiments, Bose was able to discover that the behavior of “non-living” metals and “living” organisms is very similar to each other.

The curves of the graphs recording the reaction of slightly heated magnetic iron were remarkably similar to the graphs of irritability in animal muscle tissue. Both subjects showed a decrease in power if they were subjected to overvoltage. And at the same time, both the metal and the muscles were equally restored after they were immersed in warm water or subjected to a gentle massage. Boche also discovered the same behavior in other metals.

During these experiments, Bose discovered that if one part of the metal was etched with acid and then polished until all traces of the chemical treatment were removed, that part would exhibit certain properties that the part of the metal that had not been acid treated would not exhibit. Bose believed that the processed parts of the metal somehow retained the memory of the acid reaction. For example, Bose found that Potassium completely loses its ability to recover if it is treated with certain materials. This reaction is comparable to treating muscle fibers with some kind of poison.

Observing the different reactions of metals, Bose came up with the idea of making comparative experiments on plants. Plants, according to existing prejudice, do not have a nervous system capable of transmitting impulses of irritation. This did not stop Bose - he collected several fallen chestnut leaves, experimented with them and found that they reacted to irritations in the same way as metals and muscles. Excited by his discovery, Bose hurried to the nearest food merchant, bought from him various vegetables, which at first glance gave the impression of being the most dumb and insensitive creations of nature, but which later turned out to be the most sensitive and emotional creatures!

Bose later discovered that plants could be anesthetized with chloroform in the same way as animals, and that plants also recovered from anesthesia after some time. In this way, Bose euthanized one huge coniferous tree, replanted it, after which it successfully took root in a new place, which was a great surprise to those around him, because... It is widely known that this type of tree dies after transplantation.

One day, the secretary of the Royal Society came to Bose's London laboratory to personally look at Bose's experiments. When the learned secretary saw various plates with graphs, he exclaimed in surprise: “Sir Bose, what is unusual here? Ordinary graphs reflecting the reaction of muscle tissue to irritation.” After which Bose looked intently at his English colleague and calmly said: “These graphs reflect the reaction of the metal zinc.” The secretary froze in surprise: “What did you say? Zinc?” When the secretary went away in surprise, Bose showed him his experiments on studying the reactions of metals. As a result of this conversation, Bose was invited by the Royal Society of England to give a lecture on his work on metals, which he did on May 10, 1901. To his surprise, Bose was received very friendly and attentively. But a month later, at a follow-up report, Bose was brutally attacked.

Sir John Bourdon-Sanderson, an authoritative professor in the field of physiology, initially expressed admiration for Bose's work, but immediately reproached him that Bose, with his studies of metals and plants, was intruding into someone else's field, namely physiology. Then Sir John expressed complete distrust of the results of Bose's experiments on recording electrical signals in plants, which, in Sir John's opinion, simply cannot detect the same reaction as animal muscle tissue, because. he himself had personally carried out the same experiments for many years without success. At the end of his speech, Sir John demanded that Boucher reconsider the title and topic of his report.

Bose's response was sincere indignation at the unfair accusation of Sir John, for not one of the experimental facts shown by Bose was refuted from a scientific point of view, but instead Bose heard from Sir John only pressure with his authority on Bose's free scientific research. He called on all members of the Royal Society to defend the freedom and impartiality of scientific research, and insisted on publishing their work unchanged. Unfortunately, Sir John's influence in the Royal Society of England was very strong, so the publication of Bose's work did not take place that year.

Oxford professor and specialist in plant physiology, Sir Sidney Howard Vince, learned about Bose's dispute with Sir John. He found Bose and asked him to show him experiments with plants. At the appointed time, Sir Vince, accompanied by several other scientists, arrived at Boche's London laboratory. When the arrivals saw how the plants reacted to irritations, one of them exclaimed: “The director of the Institute of Botany at the British Museum would give several years of his life to see these experiments!” Another guest, who was the scientific secretary of the London Scientific Botanical Society, immediately expressed a desire to publish Bose's work, and in addition, invited Bose to publicly demonstrate his experiments to members of the botanical society, which was later done with great success for Bose.

Bose set out to study the mechanism of mechanical movements, which had the same characteristics in both plants and animals. It is known that plants breathe without having lungs, that plants digest nutrients without having a stomach, that plants move without having muscles. Following this analogy, Bose showed that plants, without having an animal nervous system, still respond to stimuli, like higher animals.

Bose saw the only way to achieve a discernible reaction from plants in their strong irritation, sometimes reaching a state of shock. “We must find such a force,” wrote Bose, “that will force the plants to respond. In addition, it is necessary to find tools and ways that can translate the language of plants into signs that we understand.”<…>

Through his work, Bose proved that plant nerve fibers behave like animal nerve tissues. Bose states his views in the following summary: “The vast kingdom of nature consists of various divisions, each of which has its own gates. Physicists, chemists, biologists all penetrate into the secrets of nature through their gates. Therefore, scientists of different disciplines think that they are exploring their field, which in no way concerns other branches of science. Because of this one-sided approach, science has been divided into inorganic, organic and sensitive areas. But we must forget that the goal of all research is to know the truth in its entirety."

Bose's views on the similarity of reactions to stimuli between the plant and animal world encountered severe opposition from reactionary scientists, which forced Bose to construct even more complex instruments that reflected the smallest movements of plants, down to a ten-millionth of a meter. Using electromagnets, mirrors and levers, Boche managed to construct such a device. The results of these works were published in the journals of the Royal Society of England. The work was so convincing that in 1917 Bose was awarded the title of nobility of the British Empire for his scientific services, and a special building for a new institute was erected in his hometown, which after Bose’s death was named after him.

As a result of experiments on plants using a crescograph, Bose discovered that different plants react differently to his touch. Some plants stop their growth after a light touch, while others increase their growth. Bose was puzzled by such a heterogeneous reaction from his green charges. To more accurately verify the results of his research, Bose designed an even more sensitive crescograph, which received an additional level of measurements.

During Bose's lecture tour of Europe, a French philosopher from the Sorbonne University named Henry Bergson said: "Thanks to Bose's wonderful lectures, previously mute plants have turned into the most talkative creatures, revealing to us the secrets of their lives." Bose met in Europe a grateful public who were familiar with the works of Goethe and Fichner, who also