The Hurdles of Meghnad Saha

Abstract

Meghnad Saha, one of the doyens of Indian science, is best known for his Theory of Thermal Ionization. And for a good reason. This theory effected a successful marriage between the-then astronomy and the physico-chemical laws of nature. A new subject was born under the name of astrophyics. The rich store of spectral data on luminous celestial bodies, of which scientists could not make head or tail for decades, could at once be correlated with the physical parameters of these bodies. Many systematics underlying their spectra could now be understood for the first time, and many new observations predicted. The important criterion for a theory to be successful was thus amply met.