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C.V. Raman

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Scientist

The Resume

    (November 7, 1888-November 21, 1970)
    Born in Thiruvanaikoil, India
    Birth name was Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman
    Discovered the Raman effect: when light passes through a transparent material, some of the photons (about one in 10 million) change wavelength
    Received the Nobel Prize in Physics (1930)
    Knighted (1929)
    Uncle of fellow Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Why he might be annoying:

    His full name is a bitch to spell.
    He was so confident he would win the Nobel Prize that he booked a trip to Stockholm in July, four months before the announcement was made.
    He tended to be autocratic and arrogant as director of the Indian Institute of Science (1932-37).
    He frequently clashed with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru over science funding (Nehru favored applied science over basic research), reaching a peak when he threw a bust of the PM on the floor, breaking it into pieces.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He had the highest score on his bachelor's degree exam at the University of Madras.
    He was a lifelong music lover who also studied the acoustics of the violin and table.
    He was the first Asian winner of a Nobel Prize in the sciences.
    He said, 'The true strength of a nation lies not in stored-up gold, but in the intellectual strength of its people.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 5 Votes: 60.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 27 Votes: 59.26% Annoying