Collected Papers of Jnan Chandra Ghosh (An Old and Rare Book) Set of 2 Volumes

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Jnan Chandra Ghosh was born on September 14, 1893 at Purulia in a well-to-do family. He had a brilliant academic career from the Entrance to the Post Graduate Examinations. His first appointment was in the University of Calcutta as Assistant to the Palit Professor of Chemistry followed by a lectureship in 1917. In 1919, he was awarded the degree of D.Sc. from University of Calcutta for his work on some problems of electro-chemistry. He was awarded the Palit Scholarship to enable him to proceed to London for higher research work. There he postulated his theory of strong electrolytes. When published in the form of a paper it was adversely criticised by Partington but received an accolade from such stalwarts as Planck, Nernst, Haber, William Bragg and others. His postulates the cube root law was much later confirmed by means of rigorous calculations by Prof. B.N.Ghosh in a paper published in the Journal of the Indian Chemical Society.

It was in London that he started his photochemical investigations, which formed the basis of a number of path breaking investigations after his return from London as Professor and Head of the Department of Chemistry, Dacca University from 1921 to 1939. In 1939 he was invited to take charge of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore as its Director. Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore was started under the inspiration of Swami Vivekananda after returning from a unique lecture at the All World Religious Conference at Chicago. When returning from USA to his motherland in the vessel he interacted with Sir Jamshedji Tata who had been at USA to get some technicians, for his Jamshedpur Iron Works. Then Parsi community interacted with British ruler, who requested Maharaja of Mysore to allot some land for the 1.1.Sc. Research Institute. Britishers' quick action was to educate the Indians so that anti-British ideology was neutralised to some extent. He promulgated till 1947 a new era of development programmes of expansion of the Institute, which took under his guidance a new shape as an excellent place of research and won worldwide fame.

It is a great privilege to present to the world of scholars and particularly the scientific community Collected Papers of Jnan Chandra Ghosh, an eminent scientist who devoted his life for furthering the cause of science for the benefit of the mass. Dr. Ghosh did not confine himself to the particular branch of his research alone. He was instrumental not only in putting Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, on a firm pedestal but in establishing the chain of National Laboratories and IITs in post-independent India with the twin purpose of creating a scientific temper amongst the mass and bringing the scientific knowledge for the benefit of the Indians.

Our thanks are due to Dr. Rameswar Das and Dr. P.D. Chakraborty for their painstaking efforts in collecting all the scientific papers of Dr. J.C.Ghosh scattered in many journals all over the world for the benefit of the scientific community.

Our thanks are also due to Indian National Science Academy for their substantial financial assistance in bringing out this publication.