was end of an institution, Prof. Saraf was born on March 31, 1924 in a small town of Badnawar, Distt.
Dhar of Malwa Region. After his school education in his town and in Dhar he did his B.Sc. from Jaipur and M.Sc. (Physics) from Agra University in the year 1947 and Ph.D. in 1957 in the field of Experimental Nuclear Physics.
After getting his M.Sc. degree he worked in the department of Physics, Agra College, Agra for two years. During his short stay there, he got interested in Research and moved to Delhi where he worked in the University of Delhi for about one & half year. Subsequently, he got an opportunity to work at Bartol Research Foundation, Franklin Institute, Swarthmore. Pennsylvania, USA, form 1953 to 1956, during this period he worked in the field of experimental Nuclear Physics and published his research work in Physical Review. –
After returning to India, he joined Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) then headed by eminent scientist H.J. Bhabha and Nuclear Physics group headed by Dr. Ramanna. He continued his research work in the experimental Nuclear Physics at BARC. Though his research was a quality work all published in internationally reputed journal, Physical Review. But his interest was to serve the science community in general and Physics community in particular by way of developing experiments and designing associated equipment for school, college and University laboratories as an aid to teach basic concepts at that level. As such he was sent to University of Rajasthan as Prof, and Head, Department of Physics in 1962. It was the time when Physics as a subject was at its peak of popularity in Universities and colleges. He established a Center for Development of Physics Education (CDPE) with the assistance from University Grants Commission and started work of his own choice and interest. He developed kits and equipments in almost all fields of Physics and supplied them to Universities and colleges throughout the country at no profit no loss basis. He also conducted several workshop and summer programs to train college/University teachers in these experiments. In fact he wanted to develop an attitude/culture among the teaching community to emphasize the need of experimental work in understanding the basis of Physics and sciences.
Prof. Abdus Salam, then Director of ICTP got interested in his work and sent him to some African Countries to establish such centers in the Universities there and also spread the culture of experimental science. Under this program, he spent some time in Nigeria, Tanzania and Kenya. He also visited other countries of this region along with his equipments.
After retiring from Jaipur, he remained active and got some funds from UGC to run Physics Education Project at Ratlam (1992 - 1997) under the umbrella of UGC, and govt. of Madhya Pradesh. Under this program, he designed and fabricated seven - eight equipments which could be used to perform a large variety of Nuclear Physics Experiments. Not only this, but he supplied a set of these experiments to some postgraduate colleges of Indore and Ujjain University and helped in establishing the laboratory in these colleges. This was a unique work, only a person like Prof. Saraf could do. This work made him popular in his own region, the Malwa Region. When the Ratlam Project came to end, IPS Academy, Indore offered him a place where he could continue his activities with its financial support. Age was no barrier for him and during his stay at IPS Academy, he developed quite a few new experiments and associated equipments, notably among them were Foucault Pendulum, Timers with special features, sample and hold voltmeter (nearly ideal).
He also succeeded in convincing Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to allow the preparation of laboratory grade radioactive sources in our laboratory at IPS Academy. This was a unique achievement since DAE did not permit this type of activity outside its own territory.
He was not an ardent writer but he wrote two books in association with his co-workers.
1. Physics Through Experiment, Vol. I & II, Published by Vikas Publishing House.
2. Four Apparatus for the laboratory education in Quantum Electrodynamics & Nuclear Physics - Published by IPS Academy. He was founder member of IAPT and took keen interest in its activities throughout his life.
Department of Science & Technology honored him by preparing forty five minutes documentary entitled, "Babulal Saraf- Master Experimentalist" VIDEO can be seen on
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=611895857380356270#
In the honour of this great scientist IPS Academy Indore put him on the cover page of its Annual Magazine "MANTHAN" 11.
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