The Problem of Distribution

Bose Einstein Chapters:Part 01 Distribution
Medium: Single Channel video projection
Duration: 6 min 42 sec
Date: 2007

The social history of early twentieth-century science research in India informs the overall framework of the multi-part work, Bose Einstein Chapters. Over four parts, the work attempts to explore the collaboration between Albert Einstein and the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose in the field of quantum mechanics. This work was conceptualised and produced during a Pro Helvetia India funded residency at Bern, Switzerland. As part of the research I had also explored the Bern patent office archives, where Einstein had spent the years leading upto his work on Relativity. (1905)

Partition 01_Distribution, the first part in the series, tries to explore, through the narrative device of a visual fable, the concept of distribution. Bose’s 1924 paper succeed in deriving Planck's radiation law – the fundamental starting point of quantum theory formulated in 1900 – purely from the considerations of quantum theory and statistical mechanics, without taking recourse to classical electrodynamics. Bose’s paper was based on an innovative, statistical understanding of the problem of distribution, within the context of particles and energy levels.

Though Bose was convinced about the importance of his work, he couldn’t get this particular paper published. He was then a reader in Physics at the Dhaka University (currently in Bangladesh) and from Dhaka he wrote to Einstein requesting him to have a look at his paper. Bose also suggested Einstein to arrange for its publication if he found the paper sufficiently relevant. Einstein did in fact recognize the importance of Bose’s work and got the paper published in Zeitschrift für Physik, one of the leading journals of the day, after having translated it himself. Einstein soon extended Bose’s work and the Bose Einstein Statistics emerged from this scientific exchange.

Today, Bose Einstein Statistics, along with Fermi Dirac Statistics, is part of the fundamental framework of Quantum Mechanics. Particles that obey Bose Einstein Statistics are called Bosons and those that obey Fermi Dirac Statistics are called Fermions. The elusive Higgs particle, strongly believed to be responsible for giving other particles mass, is a boson. And of course, there is the Bose Einstein Condensate (BEC), an entirely new state of matter where at temperatures just a few hundred billionths of a degree above absolute zero (−273.15 °C), individual atoms condense into a “superatom” which then behaves as a single entity. Part 03 of Bose Einstein Chapters will focus on BEC and the associated concepts of “coherence” and “condensation”.