On October 30, 1909, Homi Jahangir Bhabha, considered the father of India’s nuclear program, was born into a Parsi family in Mumbai. In 1927, at the age of 18, young Homi went to Cambridge University to study mechanical engineering, in accordance with his father’s wishes. He soon decided that his true interest lay in nuclear physics, a field that was then flourishing in Cambridge.
Homi Jahangir Bhabha was the first to envision a nuclear powered India and dreamed of making it self-reliant through progress in the field of nuclear energy. Thanks to its experiments and tireless efforts, India has today become one of the largest nuclear powers in the world.
He was interested in nuclear physics from the beginning.
Interest in Nuclear Physics His great interest in physics led him to remain at Cambridge to complete a degree in Physics. He obtained his doctorate in Nuclear Physics here. While living in Europe, he met many great physicists of that time. Who later played an important role in the wartime nuclear weapons programs of the United States and Great Britain.
Among them were Niels Bohr, James Frank and Enrico Fermi. Bhabha was highly respected in the international physics community and his name is associated with the Bhabha electron scattering phenomenon.
He started working on the nuclear energy program after returning to India.
While living abroad, Bhabha learned of the discovery of fission. He returned to India in 1939. In April 1948, the then Prime Minister, at Bhabha’s request, agreed to pass the Atomic Energy Act in the Constituent Assembly, creating the Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AICE).
He was the founding director of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in 1945 and director of the Trombay Atomic Energy Establishment. Later, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi changed the name to Bhabha Atomic Research Center in his memory.
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He died in a plane crash in 1966.
Homi Bhabha died in the crash of Air India Flight 101 on January 24, 1966. The flight crashed due to a miscommunication between Geneva Airport and the flight’s pilot regarding the plane’s position near the mountain Mont Blanc.
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important events
On October 30, 1905, the Russian Emperor, Tsar Nicholas II, approved the first Russian Constitution.
On October 30, 1922, Benito Mussolini became the youngest Prime Minister in Italian history.
On October 30, 1961, Joseph Stalin’s grave was removed from the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square and buried near the Kremlin Wall.
On October 30, 1973, the Bosphorus Bridge connecting Europe and Asia was completed in Istanbul, Turkey.
On October 30, 2008, explosions occurred in Guwahati, the capital of Assam, and 13 other places, killing more than 66 people.
