Chandrasekhar

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Born: 19 Oct 1910 in Lahore, India (now Pakistan)
Died: 21 Aug 1995 in Chicago, Illinois, USA

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Chandrasekhar studied at Presidency College, University of Madras in India and then at Trinity College, Cambridge England. From 1933 to1937 he worked at Cambridge, then joined the staff at the University of Chicago where he was to remain for the rest of his life.

In 1930 Chandra, as he was always called, showed that a star of a mass greater than 1.4 times that of the Sun had to end its life by collapsing into an object of enormous density unlike any object known at that time. He said one is left speculating on other possibilities , namely objects such as black holes. For his work in this area he was awarded the Nobel prize for Physics in 1983. He described this work in The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes (1983).

His other books include Principles of Stellar Dynamics (1942), Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability (1961), and Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science (1987). He was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1962. From 1952 until 1971 he was editor of the Astrophysical Journal .

Other Web sites:

Buffalo, USA

References:

  1. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  2. K C Wali, Chandra : a biography of S Chandrasekhar (Chicago, 1991).
  3. R Nityananda, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), Current Sci. 69 (1995), 554-556. 
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