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Homi Bhabha is widely considered the major player in science and technology development after India’s independence. He dominates other prominent and much more senior Indian scientists of the era. He was entirely in charge of founding and enlarging the substantial atomic energy programme in our recently independent and largely impoverished nation. Due to his contribution to the nuclear programme, Dr Homi J. Bhabha is the father of the country’s nuclear programme. He was also the AEET’s first director and one of the main forces behind India’s creation of nuclear weapons. Learn more about Dr Homi J. Bhabha, a renowned scientist, as we examine his contributions to life, education, and everything.
Childhood:
Homi Bhabha was born on October 30, 1909, in Bombay’s famous Parsi legal family. Jehangir Bhabha and Meherbai Bhabha were his parents. .He was connected to Dorabji Tata and came from a highly affluent and illustrious family. Before enrolling at Elphinstone College, he attended Bombay’s Cathedral and John Connon School for his elementary schooling.
Education:
He continued his education at the Royal Institute of Science through 1927. Homi enrolled at Cambridge University to begin his mechanical engineering studies. But he came to understand that studying science rather than engineering was his genuine calling. He informed his parents about the problem. Homi’s caring father agreed to pay for his remaining science courses for a first-class mechanical engineering degree. He received a first-class passing grade on the mechanical engineering test in 1930.
His father honoured his commitment and permitted him to finish his education. While pursuing his doctorate in theoretical physics, Paul Dirac was Homi’s maths teacher.
His first academic article, “The Absorption of Cosmic Radiation,” published in 1933 after earning his PhD in nuclear physics, contributed to his success in 1934 when he was awarded the Isaac Newton Full scholarship, which he retained for the following three years. Nuclear physics was a developing field in the 1930s that frequently sparked contentious discussions among scientists. There were numerous developments in this area. He will also make another significant scientific breakthrough in 1935. He could ascertain the characteristics of electron-positron scattering while collaborating with Niels Bohr. Later, in his honour, this was changed to Bhabha scattering.
Return to India:
Bhabha returned to India as a result of the start of World War II in 1939. He returned to India for a little vacation but ultimately decided to remain there. Bhabha held the position of Reader in the Indian Institute of Science’s Physics Department, with eminent Indian physicist C.V. Raman headed. Later, the Sir Dorab Tata Trust gave him a research grant. With the grant funds, Bhabhi started the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the Institute. He played a major role in establishing TIFR( Tata Institute of Fundamental Research).
His Career:
Under Sir C. V. Raman, Bhabha accepted a position as a Fellow in Theoretical Physics at the IIsc Bangalore. He received the Royal Society Fellow designation in 1941. He received a promotion the following year to Professor of Cosmic Ray Studies. Additionally, he turned down opportunities to be the chair of the physics department at Allahabad University and IACS. He was chosen to serve as the Indian Science Congress’s Chairperson of Physics in 1943.
Contribution to the Atomic Energy Field
In April 1948, Bhabha wrote a letter to Jawaharlal Nehru to create an Atomic Energy Commission to oversee the growth of India’s nuclear energy programme for peaceful reasons. Nehru approved the idea, and the committee was created by parliamentary legislation in August of that same year. Bhabha was appointed as the commission’s chairman. He was elected president of the Indian Science Congress in 1951, and in 1954 he was appointed secretary to the Indian government.
Bhabha travelled to the UK in October 1958 to assess the development of nuclear power. He had to deal with several disputes with nuclear technology experts from other countries, particularly the United States.
Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha developed a plan to harness the country’s abundant thorium reserves rather than its limited uranium reserves to generate electricity. In sharp contrast to every other nation in the world, this one adopted a thorium-centred policy. Additionally, this evolved into India’s three-stage nuclear power programme.
- Stage 1: Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor
- Stage 2: Fast Breeder Reactor
- Stage 3: Thorium-Based Reactors
Awards and Honours
- Bhabha was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1941.
- Bhabha received the Adams Prize, the highest honour bestowed by the University of Cambridge, in 1942.
- The honourable Government of India bestowed the distinguished Padma Bhushan upon Bhabha in 1954.
- He also received the nobel prize in physics in 1951.
Unfortunate Death - 1966
In 1966, Bhabha perished in an Air India Boeing 707 disaster close to Mont Blanc. According to official reports, the pilot and Geneva Airport misunderstood the plane’s position relative to the mountain, which led to the disaster. But his death is still a mystery, but conspiracy theories indicate murder was meant to hinder India’s nuclear programme.
Bhabha was of tremendous stature and always had an impact outside his particular area of expertise. He made significant contributions to more diverse fields of Indian science outside of the atomic power programme and empirical studies in physics and mathematics, thanks to his limitless energy, all-encompassing vision, and influence in the power networks. We would like to end the brief and maybe contradictory overview of Bhabha’s life and career by quoting J R D Tata, who said of Bhabha: “Homi was a truly complete man. He was a scientist, architect, master builder, and administrator, versed in humanities, art, and music.”
