- Not to be confused with Homi K. Bhabha
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, (Hindi:होमी जहांगीर भाभा; 30 October 1909— 24 January 1966), FRS, was an Indian nuclear physicist who is widely considered as the architect of the Indian nuclear programme and the corner-stone figure in India's nuclear weapons. Since the independence and later partition, Bhabha was a major international figure in India's development of nuclear weapons and also a played a major role in the establishment of two well-known premier nuclear institutions, namely the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay, at which after his accidental death was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
As a physicist, he is remembered for deriving a correct expression for the probability of scattering positrons by electrons, a process now known as Bhabha scattering which proved to a crucial development in nuclear physics as well as the Modern physics. During the World war II, he had became widely known for his edge-leading research, and had returned to India after its partition and independence from United Kingdom. In 1947, he was appointed as Chief Technical Adviser to the Prime minister on nuclear energy where he had played an administrative and leading role in developing the nuclear weapons, a programme envisioned by Jawaharlal Nehru. Having served as Directing Officer of this program, Bhabha's significant contributions to the development of atomic energy in India, and later on the development of the nuclear weapons, Homi Jehangir Bhabha is widely known as the "father of Indian nuclear program".
Early life
Bhabha was born into a wealthy and prominent Parsi business family in Bombay, British Indian Empire in 1909. Bhabha and his family was related to Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, Dorab Tata and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Founder of Pakistan. Bhabha's uncle, Dorabji Tata, was a prominent industrialist who established the Tata Group which is, as of today, one of the largest and biggest multinational conglomerate business empire in India.
Bhabha received his early education at Bombay's Cathedral Grammar School and entered Elphinstone College at age 15 after passing his Senior Cambridge Examination with Honors. 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 an engineering degree from Cambridge and then return to India. Bhabha did indeed gained B.S. in Mechanical engineering from Cambridge University and returned to India where he would go on to joined the Tata Iron and Steel Mills in Jamshedpur, working under his uncle. Bhabha worked at Tata Seel Mills for a short period of time, and was later sent to Cambridge University by his father and uncle who also financed and funded his education. In 1928, Bhabha enrolled in a graduate programme to gained this M.S. in Mechanical engineering, after being insisted by his uncle and father.
Higher education and research at Cambridge
At Cambridge, Bhabha's interests gradually shifted to theoretical physics after attending a course on quantum mechanics as part of his graduate studies. In 1928, Bhabha in directed and wrote a letter to his father where Bhabha's attempted to convinced his father to understood his son's predicament. His father and uncle agreed to finance his studies in mathematics provided that he obtain first class honors required for his Mechanical engineering courses, as part of Tripos exam. After preparing and studying, Bhabha took the Tripos exam in June 1930 and passed with first class honors. 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.
Research in Physics
Initially interested in theoretical physics, Bhabha shifted his focused to the emerging nuclear physics, a challenging field at that time. In January 1933, Bhabha published his first scientific paper, "The Absorption of Cosmic radition", which proved to be crucial in the development of nuclear physics. In the publication, Bhabha offered an explanation of the absorption features and electron shower production in cosmic rays. The paper helped him win the Isaac Newton Studentship in 1934, which he held for the next three years. The following year, he completed his doctoral studies in Nuclear Physics under Ralph H. Fowler. During his studentship, he split his time working at Cambridge and with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1935, Bhabha published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, in which performed the first calculation to determine the cross section of electron-positron scattering. Electron-positron scattering was later named Bhabha scattering, in honor of his contributions in the field[citation needed].
In 1936, the two published a paper, "The Passage of Fast Electrons and the Theory of Cosmic Showers" in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, in which they used their theory to describe how primary cosmic rays from outer space interact with the upper atmosphere to produce particles observed at the ground level. Bhabha and Heitler then made numerical estimates of the number of electrons in the cascade process at different altitudes for different electron initiation energies. The calculations agreed with the experimental observations of cosmic ray showers made by Bruno Rossi and Pierre Victor Auger a few years before. Bhabha later concluded that observations of the properties of such particles would lead to the straightforward experimental verification of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. In 1937, Bhabha was awarded the Senior Studentship of the 1851 Exhibition, which helped him continue his work at Cambridge until the outbreak of World War II in 1939[citation needed].
Return to India
In September 1939, Bhabha was in India for a brief holiday when World War II broke out, and he decided not to return to England for the time being. He accepted an offer to serve as the Reader in the Physics Department of the Indian Institute of Science, then headed by renowned physicist C. V. Raman, as a professor of physi. He received a special research grant from the Sir Dorab Tata Trust, and established the Cosmic Ray Research Unit (C2RU) at the institute, and began to work on the theory of the movement of point particles. In 1945, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, Bhabha selected a few students, including Harish-Chandra, to work with him. Later, on 20 March 1941, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society . With the help of J. R. D. Tata, he played an instrumental role in the establishment of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, which in time, emerged as one of the leading nuclear weapons institute.
Indian nuclear programme
His leading edge research in nuclear physics gained attention of Indian statesman Jawaharlal Nehru who would go to serve as 1st Premier of India. In 1947, Nehru attended a secret meeting with Nehru where Bhabha and Nehru decided to formulate unwritten nuclear weapons policy. In 1948, Bhabha gained approval from Nehru and established Atomic Energy Commission of India. In 1950, Bhabha represented India in International Atomic Energy Forums, and served as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by Government of India in 1954 for his services to the nation. He later served as the member of the Indian Cabinet's Scientific Advisory Committee and set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research with Vikram Sarabhai.
By the 1960s, Bhabha had carefully established the nuclear program but the weapons production related facilities were still required. In 1962, India had lost the conflict with People's Republic of China (PRC) with PRC annexation of large areas of Northern India to the Chinese territory. Bhabha began advocating for the development of nuclear weapons programme, and Nehru as part of his visioned, officially started this program in 1964. Chinese nuclear tests under codename 596 and Test No. 6 gave India' a kicked to developed this programme. Bhabha arranged and took Nehru to United States to hold a secret meeting with retired United States Army Major-General Kenneth Nichols. According to Kenneth Nichols, a conversation was met to established and a built a military nuclear reactor for the purposes of the bomb. General Kenneth Nichols later assured Nehru that Bhabha has ability to built the Indian nuclear programme, but due to international repercussion, Nehru asked Bhabha to wait for a right time. Meanwhile, Bhabha openly vocals for the Indian' nuclear programme, and vigorously defended India's right the developed the nuclear weapons. While in the United States, Bhabha had openly called for India' to developed the nuclear weapons in order to counter the Chinese nuclear blackmailing.
Atomic Energy in India
When Bhabha was working at the Indian Institute of Science, there was no institute in India which had the necessary facilities for original work in nuclear physics, cosmic rays, high energy physics, and other frontiers of knowledge in physics. This prompted him to send a proposal in March 1944 to the Sir Dorab J. Tata Trust for establishing 'a vigorous school of research in fundamental physics'. In his proposal he wrote :
There is at the moment in India no big school of research in the fundamental problems of physics, both theoretical and experimental. There are, however, scattered all over India competent workers who are not doing as good work as they would do if brought together in one place under proper direction. It is absolutely in the interest of India to have a vigorous school of research in fundamental physics, for such a school forms the spearhead of research not only in less advanced branches of physics but also in problems of immediate practical application in industry. If much of the applied research done in India today is disappointing or of very inferior quality it is entirely due to the absence of sufficient number of outstanding pure research workers who would set the standard of good research and act on the directing boards in an advisory capacity ... Moreover, when nuclear energy has been successfully applied for power production in say a couple of decades from now, India will not have to look abroad for its experts but will find them ready at hand. I do not think that anyone acquainted with scientific development in other countries would deny the need in India for such a school as I propose.
The subjects on which research and advanced teaching would be done would be theoretical physics, especially on fundamental problems and with special reference to cosmic rays and nuclear physics, and experimental research on cosmic rays. It is neither possible nor desirable to separate nuclear physics from cosmic rays since the two are closely connected theoretically.[1]
The trustees of Sir Dorab J. 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.[2] 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.[3]
Death
After openly calling for India to developed the nuclear weapons, Nehru called Bhabha to take the charge of India's nuclear weapons program. During this time, Bhabha was attending the International Atomic Energy Agency's General Conference to address the India's nuclear policy. He immediately took the flight to returned to India but could not returned home. On January 24, 1966, while departured to India, Bhabha's Flight 101 of Air India crashed near Mont Blanc where his body was found. Many possible theories have been advanced for the air crash, including a conspiracy theory in which CIA is involved in order to paralyze Indian nuclear programme[citation needed]. After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. After his death, Raja Ramanna became the Directing officer of the Indian nuclear programme, and proved to be more capable scientist to developed the nuclear weapons.
Legacy
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[citation needed].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[citation needed]. 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. Due to his long association of Indian nuclear programme, Bhabha is often remembered as Father of Indian nuclear programme, alongside with Raja Ramanna.
