IIT Bombay is organising a J. C. Bose Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, November 11, 2009. The details are as follows:

Speaker:  Dr. Probir K. Bondopadhyay

Forensic Historian of Science & Technology

Rural World Communications, CEO

U.S.A.

Topic:   The Bose Detector of Wireless Waves and Launching of the 

              Communication Revolution

Date:      Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Time & Venue :  4.00 pm, F. C. Kohli Auditorium

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Abstract :

Professor J. C. Bose invented the contact diode detector of wireless waves in 1898 that revolutionized the world of communications in the twentieth century and beyond. Present-day incarnation of this invention receives wireless signals in every mobile wireless phone used by millions and millions of people everyday, everywhere around the world. The Bose Detector, the ‘iron-mercury-iron self-restoring coherer with a telephone’ – one in the family of his contact diode detectors was successfully used by Marconi in his reception of the first transatlantic wireless signal at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, on 12^th December 1901 at 12:30 PM local time. The Bose detector was the only device that successfully worked on that historic occasion. Another important version of this invention, the galena contact diode detector, was patented in the United Kingdom and the United States during 1901-1904, representing India’s first wireless electronics technology transfer to the West. Professor Bose then moved into interdisciplinary research for the rest of his life.

This presentation will discuss this invention and its applications in full historical perspective. A video clip will be presented depicting the historical background and application of Professor Bose’s invention through Marconi’s activities.