Plants ‘feel pain’ -- Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose

Indian scientist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose was born 158 years ago, and became a world leader in telecommunications with innumerable achievements to his name,

He was one of the ‘fathers of radio science’ During years of research, Bose made outstanding progress in bringing remote wireless signalling to life and invented an early version of wireless telecommunication.

He understood that plants ‘feel pain’

Perhaps Bose’s greatest achievement was his invention of the crescograph, which allowed scientists to discover how the seasons and external stimuli affected plant life. The scientist worked tirelessly to chart how chemical inhibitors, temperature and light change the way plants grow, and advise humans on how to better care for vegetation.

It paved the way for scientists to better understand how to cultivate crops in a more effective way, and encouraged people to take better care of plant life. In one particular report, Bose wrote that he believed plants “feel pain and understand affection” just as much as humans do.

Bose strongly believed that plants had a sensitive nervous system, not unlike that of animals, and that their responses to external stimuli could be measured and recorded. His belief was strengthened by the results of his experiments. For instance, in one of his experiments, the plant was dipped in bromide (a poison). The pulse beat of the plant, shown as a light spot on the smoked plate, became unsteady once the plant started taking in the poison, proving that plants have life.

Encouraged by the results of this experiment, Bose began studying how plants behave differently under different environmental factors such as temperature, chemicals, electricity, gases and humidity. The more responses he got from his plants, the more detailed his efforts became. Bose was astounded to discover that an electric death spasm occurs in plants when they die, and that the actual moment of death in a plant could be accurately recorded. As he later wrote:

“All around us, the plants are communicating. We just don’t notice it.”

Determined to reveal the wonders of plant perception to the world, Bose described his experiments and their results in his 1902 paper - “Responses in the Living and Non-Living”. He wrote how plants grew more quickly when exposed to nice music and gentle whispers, and poorly when exposed to harsh music and loud speech. He even mentioned how plants became depressed when exposed to polluted air and darkening skies. In short, his work showed that plants could feel pleasure and they could feel pain.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the largest international body dedicated to advancement of technology, has recognised Bose's 1895 experiment demonstrating short-wave communication as a milestone achievement nearly 120 years later.

Bose generated 5mm electromagnetic waves, 60GHz, before instruments even evolved to measure frequencies that low. The millimeter wave that J C Bose worked on is the backbone of developing 5G.

Bose's millimeter waves have found applications in a variety of fields since their discovery over a century ago — they're used in everything from radio telescopes to radar and, more recently, for collision-warning systems and cruise control in modern day cars.