On the origins of the Raman Effect

I explore the events that led to the discovery of the Raman effect by C.V. Raman and K.S. Krishnan at Calcutta in 1928. I also argue that, although the Raman effect was generally seen as providing strong evidence for the quantum nature of light, Raman himself was a staunch supporter of the classical wave theory of light. This work is part of a larger project, which seeks to understand the role of Raman scattering in the experimental verification of the quantum dispersion theory of Hendrik A. Kramers, which formed a bridge between Bohr and Sommerfeld's old quantum theory and Heisenberg's matrix mechanics.