This volume contains 55 publications in the field of Acoustics and includes the famous landmark paper On the Mechanical Theory of Vibration of Bowed Strings--perhaps the most important contribution to the theory of violins since Helmholtz, and also the English translation of Raman's celebrated monograph, Musik instrumente und ihre Klange (Musical Instruments and Their Tones) in the Springer Encyclopaedia of Physics. The volume includes six remarkable papers on the acoustics of Indian musical instruments--the mridangam and tabla, the only percussion instruments in the world that produce harmonic vibrations, and the tanpura and veena.

To C.V. Raman color was an obsession. The visual impact that the blue of the Mediterranean had on him culminated in his discovery of the Raman effect. This volume contains 79 papers he published on a variety of topics, 39 of which deal with color in Nature. All the optical phenomena in his repertoire were necessary to explain the flashing rainbow colors of the plumage of birds. 16 papers deal with diamonds: The beauty of their geometric form, and their lustrous curved faces bring out clearly that many specimens exhibit a symmetry lower than the highest in the cubic class. Twenty papers deal with miscellaneous topics in which Raman was interested from time to time. His phenomenological theory of viscosity which was so useful to the polymer chemist, his classic studies of impact between two bodies, and his pioneering work of the mechanism on fracture of solids are all dealt with in this volume.

To C.V. Raman color was an obsession. The visual impact that the blue of the Mediterranean had on him culminated in his discovery of the Raman effect. This volume contains 79 papers he published on a variety of topics, 39 of which deal with color in Nature. All the optical phenomena in his repertoire were necessary to explain the flashing rainbow colors of the plumage of birds. 16 papers deal with diamonds: The beauty of their geometric form, and their lustrous curved faces bring out clearly that many specimens exhibit a symmetry lower than the highest in the cubic class. Twenty papers deal with miscellaneous topics in which Raman was interested from time to time. His phenomenological theory of viscosity which was so useful to the polymer chemist, his classic studies of impact between two bodies, and his pioneering work of the mechanism on fracture of solids are all dealt with in this volume.

Volume V of the Scientific Papers of C.V. Raman contains the papers published by Raman on various aspects of crystal dynamics. The volume also contains a new view of the theory of elasticity developed by Raman and Viswanathan in which the symmetries of the stress and strain tensors and the number of independent elastic constraints differed from the standard view.

The name of Raman is familiar to science not only through the effect that bears his name, but also due to derivative names such as stimulated Raman scattering and Raman laser. However, other than that he won the Nobel Prize, little is generally know about the man himself. But the story is fascinating. Raman fiercely cherished his independence and rejected government support for his research. A sharp critic of many government policies, he was often misunderstood and maligned, though his commitment to science and to its growth in India never wavered. Venkataraman's account deals with all these aspects of Raman's life and work, besides placing them in a proper perspective vis-a-vis the overall Indian scene. Numerous quotations help capture the mood and excitement of those times. The book is not only a lively biography of a colorful personality, but also required reading for anyone with a serious interest in and concern for Indian science.

Raman scattering is now being applied with increasing success to a wide range of practical problems at the cutting edge of materials science. The purpose of this book is to make Raman spectroscopy understandable to the non-specialist and thus to bring it into the mainstream of routine materials characterization. The book is pedagogical in approach and focuses on technologically important condensed-matter systems in which the specific use of Raman spectroscopy yields new and useful information. Included are chapters on instrumentation, bulk semiconductors and alloys, heterostructures, high-Tc superconductors, catalysts, carbon-based materials, wide-gap and super-hard materials, and polymers.