My Boyhood Days

Rabindranath Tagore had an abiding interest in the philosophical implications of modern science and had regular interactions with the leading scientists of his time.

By 1919 Albert Einstein had emerged in the eyes of the whole world as the new messiah of science who had dislodged the mighty Newton from his pedestal by daring to challenge the absolute character of space and time and their Euclidean geometry, and the very character of light as a wave.

This monograph is a complete account of their correspondence, meetings, conversations, musings on each other and photographs, collected from the archives at Rabindra Bhavana, Santiniketan, Leo Baeck Institute, New York/Berlin, and other sources, enriched by comments of eminent scholars, and introductions to the historical milieu of their meetings and the philosophical issues that engaged them.

After obtaining his D. Phil (Science) from Calcutta University in 1968 under the supervision of Professor S. N. Bose, Partha Ghose taught Physics at Siksha Bhavana, Visva- Bharati until August, 1975.

He retired as Professor and Academic Programme Coordinator of the S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Kolkata in 1999. Presently he is Senior Scientist Platinum Jubilee Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, India, and is affiliated to the Centre for Astroparticle Physics & Space Science, Bose Institute. He is also a member of the Advisory Council of Einstein Bhavana, Visva-Bharati. Currently his interests include the foundations of physics, cognitive science, philosophy, music and in teaching physics and chemistry to school children in an innovative way. He was awarded the Indira Gandhi Prize for the popularization of Science by the Indian National Science Academy in 2000.

**Contents and Sample Pages**