Title: The Eternal Fascination of the Himalayas: The Musings of Maxwell, Rayleigh and William Jones

Speaker: Prof. Vijay Singh, Visiting Professor, Centre for Excellence in Basic Science, Mumbai University

Abstract: The Himalayas have exerted a mesmerizing influence on mankind. Kalidas describes itvividly in Meghdoot. Medieval poets such as Amir Khusro and a host of modern poets havedescribed it with a mixture of awe, wonder and reverence. The British were no exception.British explorers have spoken about it and scientists such as Maxwell and Rayleigh havepondered over it. From how far can one see the Himalayan peaks? This was a query posedby James Maxwell to Lord Rayleigh (1873). This led Rayleigh to formulate the theoryof light scattering by air, which is now famously known as “Rayleigh scattering”. It alsoexplains why the sky is blue (1897-1899). On another note the renowned orientalist andfounder of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1784) Sir William Jones claimed to have sightedHimalayan peaks from towns on the Indo-Gangetic plain which are more than 350 km away!Along with a young student I revisited these claims and calculations and came up with somesurprises. We shall present them in a pedagogical fashion.

Reference: “On Viewing the Himalayas from the Plains”, Vijay A. Singh and ArnavSingh, American Journal of Physics, Vol.89, pp 589-595, June 2021 and references therein.