Bose Research Institute, Calcutta

Abstract

ANNUAL REPORTS THE annual report of the governing body of the Bose Research Institute, Calcutta, for the year 1943–44 refers to the way in which the growing difficulty in securing photographic materials, glass goods and chemicals, especially organic chemicals, hampers the work of the Institute. With grants received from the Board of Scientific and Industrial Research, schemes of research on the setting up of a powerful generator of ultrasonic waves and on testing and cutting quartz plates for the radio industry have been undertaken, and with grants from the Bengal Immunity Co., Ltd., schemes for applied research in microbiology and on the vernalization of paddy in Bengal are also being undertaken. Among the investigations referred to in the report are those on cosmic rays, and an important paper on the Wilson chamber study of meson spectra has been published in the Transactions of the Institute, results obtained in the laboratory agreeing with the predictions of the theory of Moller and Rosenfeld. The investigations with the Wilson chamber photographs are being continued to verify and extend the results obtained with lead absorbers with other absorbers like iron and carbon. Other physical researches were concerned with nuclear fission, the nuclear isomerization of Br⁸⁰, the construction of a neutron generator and an ultrasonic generator. A valve tube amplifier circuit has been assembled for measuring dielectric potentials set up in plant tissues, either simultaneously or under stimulation, and the transmission of excitation in Nitella and Chara is being studied.