This book is a biography of Homi J. Bhabha (1909 – 1966), the Indian physicist and scientific statesman. It is one of a series of books by Ganesan Venkataraman for Indian science students, and is written in that author's lively and informal style.

If, as Emerson wrote, "an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man," then Bhabha is the man whom both the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre are the long shadows of.

Bhabha was at the forefront of theoretical particle physics at its dawn in the 1930s. (As a small example, we think the way relativistic time dilation lengthens the decay times of unstable particles is obvious, but it was not obvious then, and it was Bhabha who pointed it out.) With the example of Chandrasekhar before him, clearly he could have stayed in the West and pursued a career in physics there, attaining eminence. But even after the war he chose to stay in India. Considering the state of physics in India at the time, his was an act of substantial personal sacrifice. But his influence on India in the next two decades, as the architect of its nuclear program and as its leading advocate for physical science, was enormous.

Venkataraman doesn't mention it, but there is a close parallel to Bhabha in Abdus Salam. Both of them were student prodigies, both studied at Cambridge, both advised their governments on those governments' respective nuclear weapons programs, and both were institution-builders. But Bhabha was far more involved in the Indian program. Also, Salam pursued his career in Europe, founded his institute in a cosmopolitan European city, and raised funds from the governments of many nations including oil-rich Arab states. The Tata Institute was specifically Indian, and Bhabha relied on Indian funding only; also, its mission encompassed a far wider range of science. Plainly Bhabha took the harder road. His audacity may be judged from the fact that he took the leading scientific institutes of the world as models from the start. Bhabha's family relationship with the Tata dynasty and his close friendship with Nehru were crucial to the success of his plans.

Bhabha was also a more complex personality than Salam. His perfectionism led him to oversee every aspect of the Tata, including architecture and landscaping. He imposed his personal standards on the life of his organizations, not typical in a country where bureaucracies often yield to entropy. His early death prevented him from witnessing the way his plans unfolded.

Venkataraman doesn't mention that Bhabha was a friend of Pauli, who did not suffer fools. Enz's biography of Pauli mentions his correspondence with Bhabha (including Pauli's wish at one point to be working in India). The correspondence between Bhabha and Nehru was much more significant, of course, and Venkataraman devotes space to it.

The present reviewer, who is not Indian, not a student or a scientist, and not particularly interested in science policy or institutional history, nevertheless found this book fascinating from start to finish. ( )