He certainly had an interesting life, but I don't think the person giving their name to half the particles in the universe can be called ‘a little forgotten’.
But, I'm not sure people know that a Boson is named after him at all and if they do I'd bet they assume (like I once did) that Bose was some German or Hungarian bloke.
(Mind you, I also thought that the Bose of Bose Corporation[1] would have been a European rather than Indian descent, too. Clearly, I have some prejudice I need to work out).
Also one thing to keep in mind is that there are two eminent Bengali scientists named Bose -- there is of course Satyen Bose but there is also Jagadish Chandra Bose: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagadish_Chandra_Bose
Wikipedia mentions a couple of ‘von Bose’, and I have to admit that I don’t see any particularly tight link between ‘Bose’ and ‘böse’ – the umlaut does have a special pronunciation, after all.
Good point, I guess native German speakers are better at forming that distinction automatically, whereas umlaut-free language speakers probably have a harder time of it.
But, I'm not sure people know that a Boson is named after him at all and if they do I'd bet they assume (like I once did) that Bose was some German or Hungarian bloke.
(Mind you, I also thought that the Bose of Bose Corporation[1] would have been a European rather than Indian descent, too. Clearly, I have some prejudice I need to work out).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Bose