Jagadish Chandra Bose

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, CSI, CIE, FRS was a Indian polymath: a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, and science fiction writer. He pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, made extremely significant contributions to plant science, and laid the foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent. He is considered the father of radio science,[3] and is also considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He was the first from the Indian subcontinent to get a US patent, in 1904.

Born in Bengal province of British India, Bose graduated from St. Xavier's College, Calcutta. He then went to the University of London to study medicine, but couldn't complete his studies due to health problems. He returned to India and joined the Presidency College as a Professor of Physics. There, despite racial discrimination and a lack of funding and equipment, Bose carried on his scientific research. He made remarkable progress in his research of remote wireless signaling and was the first to use semiconductor junctions to detect radio signals. However, instead of trying to gain commercial benefit from this invention Bose made his inventions public in order to allow others to develop on his research. Subsequently, he made some pioneering discoveries in plant physiology. He used his own invention crescograph to measure plant response to various stimuli, and thereby scientifically proved parallelism between animal and plant tissues. Although Bose filed for patent for one of his inventions due to peer pressure, his reluctance to any form of patenting was well known. Now, some 70 years of after his death, he is being recognised for many of his contributions to modern science.