This is an eminently readable account of not only the life and scientific contributions of Sir K. S. Krishnan FRS but also in many ways, the history of the genesis of modern physics in India from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Written by two scientists at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics with a strong interest in the history and popularization of science in India, it relies heavily on the private papers in the possession of Krishnan’s family as well as interviews of many of his students and colleagues.
The book has a total of 21 chapters spanning the time from his birth in December 1898 to his untimely death in June 1961. Born in a village of what was then the Madras Presidency (and now Tamil Nadu), Krishnan early on displayed a strong mathematical ability as well as an aptitude for experimental physics. The early chapters trace the roots...
