Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
For those who seek to express their creativity in the realm of invention,
Guha offers this advice:
Don't be afraid to try new ideas, and don't be disheartened if it doesn't work the
first time....To put an idea into practice can sometimes take a very long time.And
there is a difference between discovery in a fundamental area and invention of a
product. If you are a scientist, you may discover something which is not used in a
practical way, but that is also immensely important.
There is no set rule. Sometimes, invention comes from serendipity. You may
stumble on to it, but you must have the knowledge and wisdom to recognize its
importance, and pursue it to create a worthwhile concept or a product. . . . Quite
often, on the other hand, you think of something and argue out that it will work.
Then you test the hypothesis and demonstrate that the concept really does work.
Guha grew up in a large family, with four brothers and five sisters. His
father was a respected attorney. His mother, a full-time homemaker, was a
brilliant woman whose innate inventiveness made a strong impression on
her son. It was not until he began to study physics at Calcutta's prestigious
Presidency College that Guha became serious about science. There and at
the University of Calcutta, where he later did graduate work, Guha was
exposed to a rigorous approach to research, which he found very exciting.
“In physics,” he says, “you ask really fundamental questions, and try to get
answers to them. I got interested in physics when I was in Presidency Col-
lege, but I got interested in semiconductors only when I was pursuing my
Master's degree at Calcutta University. Semiconductors are the building
blocks of electronic devices like transistors and integrated circuits. In the
early sixties, new rules in semiconductor physics were being formulated,
and a new generation of devices was being made.That intrigued me.”
After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta in 1968, he joined
the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, an internationally renowned
academic research institution in Bombay. Other significant developments
soon followed that affected the direction of his life and work. In 1971, he
married Jayashree Bose, who has been extremely supportive of his research
and accepting of the long, irregular hours that his scientific work has
demanded.A son,Aveek, was born 2 years later. It was at that time, too, that
Guha began to investigate the use of semiconductors to convert sunlight
into electricity. This field of research appealed to him for two reasons: he
found the problems intellectually challenging, and it was work that could
address societal problems.
