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First man to talk to plants..
Sir Jagadish Chandra BosePhoto: AFP
Acharya Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was a Bengali botanist, physicist, archaeologist, as well as an early writer of science fiction, who made a number of pioneering discoveries on 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. He was also the first to discover radio and microwave optics and laid the foundations of experimental science in the Indian subcontinent. IEEE named him one of the fathers of radio science, and he is credited for the invention of the first wireless detection device and the discovery of millimetre length electromagnetic waves and considered a pioneer in the field of biophysics. Today, he is considered the father of Bengali science fiction. He was the first person from the Indian subcontinent to receive a US patent in 1904. Speaking at the Bikrampur Conference in 1915, Bose said: "At that time, sending children to English schools was an aristocratic status symbol. In the vernacular school, to which I was sent, the son of the Muslim attendant of my father sat on my right side, and the son of a fisherman sat on my left. They were my playmates. I listened spellbound to their stories of birds, animals and aquatic creatures. Perhaps these stories created in my mind a keen interest in investigating the workings of Nature." Bose lived between November 30, 1858 and November 23, 1937.
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