Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS (Hindi: होमी भाभा;
30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist, founding
director, and professor of physics at the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research. Colloquially known as "father of Indian
nuclear programme", Bhabha was the founding director of
two well-known research institutions, namely the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Trombay
Atomic Energy Establishment (now named
after him); both sites were the cornerstone of Indian development of
nuclear weapons which Bhabha also supervised as its director.
Career
Starting
his scientific career in nuclear physics from
Great Britain, Bhabha returned to India for his annual vacation prior to start
of the World
War II in September 1939, prompting Bhabha to remain in India,
and accepted a post of reader in physics at the Indian
Institute of Science in Bangalore, headed
by Nobel
laureate C.V.
Raman. During this time, Bhabha played a key role in convincing
the Congress
Party's senior leaders, most notableJawaharlal Nehru who
later served as India's first Premier,
to start the ambitious nuclear programme. As part of this vision, Bhabha
established the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the institute, began to work on the
theory of the movement of point particles,
while independently conduct research on nuclear weapons in 1944. In 1945,
he established the Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, and the Atomic
Energy Commission in 1948, serving its first chairman. In
1948, Nehru led the appointment of Bhabha as the director of the nuclear
programme and tasked Bhabha to develop the nuclear weapons soon after. In
the 1950s, Bhabha represented India in IAEA conferences,
and served as President of the United Nations Conference
on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva,
Switzerland in 1955. During this time, he intensified his
lobbying for developing the nuclear weapons, and soon after the Sino-Indo war,
Bhabha aggressively and publicly began to call for the nuclear weapons.
Bhabha
gained international prominence after deriving a correct expression for the
probability of scattering positrons by electrons, a process now known as Bhabha
scattering. His major contribution included his work on Compton
scattering, R-process,
and furthemore the advancement of nuclear physics. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by
Government of India in 1954. He later served as the member of the Indian
Cabinet's Scientific Advisory Committee and provided the pivotal
role toVikram Sarabhai to
set up the Indian
National Committee for Space Research. In January 1966, Bhabha died
in a plane
crash near Mont Blanc, while
heading to Vienna, Austria to
attend a meeting of the International
Atomic Energy Agency's Scientific Advisory Committee.
Early life
Homi Jahangir Bhabha was born into a wealthy and prominent
industrial Parsi family,
through which he was related to Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, and Dorabji
Tata. He was born on October 30, 1909 in an illustrious family with
a long tradition of learning and service to the country. His father was
Jehangir Hormusji Bhabha, a well known lawyer and mother was Meheren (http://www.igcar.ernet.in/press_releases/press29.htm).
He received his early education at Bombay's Cathedral and John Connon School and entered Elphinstone College at age 15 after passing his Senior
Cambridge Examination with Honors. His name, Homi, is from
Persian (جهانگیر), meaning "conqueror of the world."
He then attended the Royal Institute of Science until 1927 before
joining Caius College of Cambridge University. This was due to the insistence
of his father and his uncle Dorab Tata,
who planned for Bhabha to obtain a degree in Mechanical engineering from Cambridge and then
return to India, where he would join the Tata Steel
Mills in Jamshedpur as a metallurgist.
At the University of Cambridge
While At Cambridge, Bhabha closely interacted and befriended
with his fellow countrymen and influential theoretical physicist Raziuddin Siddiqui who would later go on to
participate in secretTube Alloys— a
codename of British nuclear program. Bhabha's father understood
his son's predicament, and he agreed to finance his studies in mathematics
provided that he obtain first class on his Mechanical Sciences Tripos exam.
Bhabha took the Tripos exam in June 1930 and passed with first class.
Afterwards, he embarked on his mathematical studies under Paul Dirac to
complete the Mathematics Tripos. Meanwhile, he worked at the Cavendish Laboratory while working towards his
doctorate in theoretical physics. At the time, the laboratory was the center of
a number of scientific breakthroughs. James
Chadwick had discovered the neutron, John
Cockcroft and Ernest
Walton transmuted lithium with
high-energy protons, and Patrick Blackett and Giuseppe Occhialini used cloud
chambers to demonstrate the production of electron
pairs and showers by
gamma radiation.
During the 1931–1932 academic year, Bhabha was awarded the
Salomons Studentship in Engineering. In 1932, he obtained first class on his Mathematical Tripos and was awarded the Rouse
Ball traveling studentship in mathematics. During this time,
the nuclear physics was attracting the greatest minds and it was one of the
most significantly emerging fields as compared to theoretical physics, the opposition towards
theoretical physics attacked the fields as it was lenient towards theories
rather than proving the natural phenomenon through experiments. Conducting
experiments on particles which also released tremendous amount of radiation,
was lifelong passion of Bhabha, and his leading edge research and experiments
brought great laurels to Indian physicists who particularly switched their
fields to nuclear physics. One of the notable being the Piara
Singh Gill who would contribute in his field of interest.
The
trustees of Sir Dorabji Jamsetji. Tata Trust decided to accept Bhabha's
proposal and financial responsibility for starting the Institute in April 1944. Bombay was
chosen as the location for the prosed Institute as the Government of Bombay
showed interest in becoming a joint founder of the proposed institute. The
institute, named Tata
Institute of Fundamental Research, was inaugurated in 1945 in 540
square meters of hired space in an existing building. In 1948 the Institute was
moved into the old buildings of the Royal Yacht club. When Bhabha realized that
technology development for the atomic energy programme could no longer be
carried out within TIFR he proposed to the government to build a new laboratory
entirely devoted to this purpose. For this purpose, 1200 acres of land was
acquired at Trombay from the Bombay Government. Thus the Atomic Energy
Establishment Trombay (AEET) started functioning in 1954. The same year the
Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was also established. He represented
India in International Atomic Energy Forums, and as President of the United Nations Conference
on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, in Geneva, Switzerland
in 1955. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.
Visionary behind India's Three Stage Nuclear Power Programme
Bhabha is generally acknowledged as the father of Indian nuclear
power. Moreover, he is credited with formulating the country's strategy in the
field of nuclear power to focus on extracting power from the country's vast thorium reserves rather than its meagre uranium reserves. This thorium focused strategy
was in marked contrast to all other countries in the world. The approach
proposed by Bhabha to achieve this strategic objective became India's three stage nuclear power programme.
Bhabha paraphrased the three stage approach as follows:
“
|
The total reserves of thorium in India amount to over 500,000
tons in the readily extractable form, while the known reserves of uranium are
less than a tenth of this. The aim of long range atomic power programme in
India must therefore be to base the nuclear power generation as soon as
possible on thorium
rather than uranium… The first generation of atomic power stations based
on natural uranium can only be used to start off an atomic power programme…
The plutonium produced by the first generation power stations can be used in
a second generation of power stations designed to produce electric power and
convert thorium into U-233, or depleted uranium into more plutonium with
breeding gain… The second generation of power stations may be regarded as an
intermediate step for the breeder power stations of the third generation all
of which would produce more U-233 than they burn in the course of producing
power.
|
”
|
As
a result of Bhabha's vision, "India has the most technically ambitious and
innovative nuclear energy program in the world. The extent and functionality of
its nuclear experimental facilities are matched only by those in Russia and are
far ahead of what is left in the US."
Death
He
died when Air
India Flight
101 crashed near Mont Blanc on
24 January 1966.
ASSASSINATION
CONSPIRACY
Many
possible theories have been advanced for the air crash, including a conspiracy
theory in which Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is involved in order to
paralyze India's nuclear program. In 2012, an Indian diplomatic bag
containing newspapers, calendars and a personal letter was recovered near the
crash site.
Legacy
After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay was
renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. In
addition to being an able scientist and administrator, Bhabha was also a
painter and a classical music and opera enthusiast, besides being an amateur
botanist .He is one of the most
prominent scientists that India has ever had. Bhabha also encouraged research
in electronics, space
science, radio
astronomy and microbiology.
The famed radio telescope at Ooty,
India was his initiative, and it became a reality in 1970. The Homi Bhabha
Fellowship Council has been giving the Homi Bhabha Fellowships since 1967 Other
noted institutions in his name are the Homi Bhabha National Institute, an Indian deemed
university and the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai,
India.
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