astronomy

Samaresh Mitra

Samaresh Mitra is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Samaresh Mitra rather than just read about it. In short: Samaresh Mitra (born 1937) is an Indian bioinorganic chemist and an INSA Senior Scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB). He is known for his research on inorganic paramagnetic complexes and low-symmetry transition metal complexes.

Key takeaways

Samaresh Mitra belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Samaresh Mitra to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Samaresh Mitra from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Samaresh Mitra (born 1937) is an Indian bioinorganic chemist and an INSA Senior Scientist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB). He is known for his research on inorganic paramagnetic complexes and low-symmetry transition metal complexes. He is an elected fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, India and the Indian Academy of Sciences. The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the apex agency of the Government of India for scientific research, awarded him the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, one of the highest Indian science awards, in 1983, for his contributions to chemical sciences.

Biography

Born on 17 March 1940 in the Indian state of West Bengal, Samaresh Mitra graduated in chemistry from the Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University and completed his master's degree form the same institution. Enrolling for his doctoral studies in 1962 at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS) where he had the opportunity to work under the guidance of Akshayananda Bose, a renowned chemist, he secured his DPhil in 1966 and moved to the University of Melbourne the same year for his post-doctoral studies at the department of chemistry of the university. On his return to India in 1970, he started his career by joining the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) where he spent his entire academic career till his superannuation as a Senior Professor in 2003. Subsequently, he moved to the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB) as a Raja Ramanna fellow where he continues as an INSA Senior Scientist. During the course of his career, he served as a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford, as a visiting professor at the Ohio State University, University of Pennsylvania, University of North Carolina, Australian National University and Monash University and as a visiting fellow at Tezpur University.

Legacy Mitra's research was focused on physico-chemical and spectroscopic studies of bimolecular systems. He deployed single crystal magnetic anisotropy and Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for investigating inorganic paramagnetic complexes such as metalloporphyrins and low-symmetry transition metal complexes and his work is reported to have widened our understanding of their electronic structures. His contribution to magnetochemistry is marked by the methodologies he developed to measure single crystal susceptibilities. Working on the magnetic and electronic properties of phthalocynines, metal porphyrins and similar inorganic materials, the team led by him discovered the molecular ferromagnet and elucidated their electronic structures for the first time. He also elucidated a method for the determination of the electronic structures of low symmetry systems utilizing their single crystal magnetic properties, also reported to be a first time discovery. Later in his career, he studied metal enzymes and proteins with regard to their enzyme-substrate interaction, molecular recognition, drug metabolism as well as the catalytic functions of several enzymes. These studies have assisted in resolving problems faced by the researchers on metabolic and catalytic pathways. Mitra's researches have been documented in over 140 articles published in peer-reviewed journals and several authors have quoted his work. Besides, he has also contributed chapters to seven books authored by others, including Single Crystal Magnetic Study on Ferromagnetic Manganese (II) Phthalocyanine, published by the Defense Technical Information Center in 1982. On the academic front, he established a bioinorganic chemistry laboratory at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and organised an international conference series on bioinorganic chemistry which is now conducted every four years. He was among the group of scientists who initiated the Modern Trends In Inorganic Chemistry, a bi-annual conference in 1985 and serves as a member of its national advisory committee. He is also associated with a number of journals as their editorial board member and has sat in various committees set up by the Department of Science and Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the University Grants Commission of India.

Awards and honors The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research awarded Samaresh Mitra the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, India's highest award in science, in 1983. He received the Silver Medal of the Chemical Research Society of India in 2002 and the D. S. Kothari Memorial Gold Medal of the Indian Science Congress Association in 2005. An elected scholar of the St John's College, Oxford in 1986, he is an elected fellow of all the three major Indian science academies, viz. Indian National Science Academy, Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences, India. The award orations delivered by him include the INSA S. Swaminathan 60th Birthday Commemoration Lecture (1998) and the C. Natarajan Endowment Medal of the Madurai Kamaraj University (1998).

Selected bibliography

Books Mitra, S. (1977). "Chemical Applications of Magnetic Anisotropy Studies on Transition Metal Complexes". In S. J. Lippard (ed.). Progress in Inorganic Chemistry. Vol. 22. Hoboken, NJ, USA.: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 309–408b. doi:10.1002/9780470166239.ch3. ISBN 9780470166239. Mitra, Samaresh (1982). Single Crystal Magnetic Study on Ferromagnetic Manganese (II) Phthalocyanine. Defense Technical Information Center.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Samaresh Mitra

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Samaresh Mitra claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Samaresh Mitra before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Samaresh Mitra ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Samaresh Mitra

In research: Samaresh Mitra appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Samaresh Mitra in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Samaresh Mitra is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1937 births, Academic staff of Monash University, Academic staff of Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Samaresh Mitra outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Samaresh Mitra” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Samaresh Mitra in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Samaresh Mitra means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Samaresh Mitra out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Samaresh Mitra in simple terms?

Why does Samaresh Mitra matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Samaresh Mitra?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Samaresh Mitra.