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{{Short description|Indian-American physicist (1910-1995)}}{{EngvarB|date=July 2016}}{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}}

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| image = Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.gif| image_size = 220pxdf=yes10|19}}Lahore, Punjab (British India)>Punjab, British Raj (present-day Punjab, Pakistan>Punjab, Pakistan)df=yes08191019}}| death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S.British India (1910–1947)United States (1953–1995)}}

• University of Madras (BSc)
• Trinity College, Cambridge (MSc, PhD) {edih}

Lalitha Doraiswamy|1936}}| family = Chandrasekhar family| thesis_title = Polytropic distributions| thesis_year = 1933| doctoral_advisor = Ralph H. FowlerArthur Eddington

• Donald Edward Osterbrock
• Guido Münch
• Roland Winston
• Jeremiah P. Ostriker
• Jerome Kristian
• Yousef Sobouti
• Anne Barbara Underhill
• Arthur Code
• Surindar Kumar TrehanWEB,weblink Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – The Mathematics Genealogy Project, www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu, }}

• Chandrasekhar limit
• Chandrasekhar number
• Chandrasekhar friction
• Chandrasekhar–Kendall function
• Chandrasekhar's H-function
• Emden–Chandrasekhar equation
• Chandrasekhar–Fermi method
• Chandrasekhar–Friedman–Schutz instability
• Chandrasekhar–Page equations
• Kramers–Chandrasekhar equation
• Chandrasekhar tensor
• Chandrasekhar virial equations
• Batchelor–Chandrasekhar equation
• Schönberg–Chandrasekhar limit
• Chandrasekhar's white dwarf equation
• Chandrasekhar polarization
• Chandrasekhar's X- and Y-function
• Discrete Ordinates Method
• Others in list form{edih}| signature = Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar signature.png| footnotes =

Astrophysics General relativityFluid dynamicsRadiationQuantum chemistry>Quantum theory| work_institutions = University of ChicagoYerkes ObservatoryBallistic Research LaboratoryUniversity of Cambridge

• FRS (1944)
• Adams Prize (1948)
• Nobel Prize in Physics (1983)
• Copley Medal (1984)
• National Medal of Science (1966)
• Royal Medal (1962)
• Padma Vibhushan (1968)
• Heineman Prize (1974)
• Marcel Grossman Award (1994){edih}

}}Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FRS}} ({{IPAc-en|ËŒ|tʃ|æ|n|d|r|É™|ˈ|ʃ|eɪ|k|É™r}};WEB,weblink Great Indians: Professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, NDTV, 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995)JOURNAL, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995), Donald E., Osterbrock, Donald Edward Osterbrock, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 142, 4, December 1998, 658–665, American Philosophical Society, 3152289, 0003-049X, was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who made significant contributions to understanding of stellar evolution, black holes, and the structure of stars. He was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in physics along with William A. Fowler for "...theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". His mathematical treatment of stellar evolution yielded many of the current theoretical models of the later evolutionary stages of massive stars and black holes.JOURNAL, Vishveshwara, C.V., Leaves from an unwritten diary: S. Chandrasekhar, Reminiscences and Reflections, Current Science, 78, 8, 1025–1033, 25 April 2000,weblink JOURNAL, Horgan, J., John Horgan (American journalist), 1994, Profile: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar â€“ Confronting the Final Limit, Scientific American, 270, 3, 32–33, 10.1038/scientificamerican0394-32, 0036-8733, Many concepts, institutions, and inventions, including the Chandrasekhar limit and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, are named after him.JOURNAL, Sreenivasan, K. R. Sreenivasan, K. R., Chandrasekhar's Fluid Dynamics, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics, 51, 1, 1–24, 2019, 10.1146/annurev-fluid-010518-040537, 0066-4189, 2019AnRFM..51....1S, free, Chandrasekhar worked on a wide variety of problems in physics during his lifetime, contributing to the contemporary understanding of stellar structure, white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, stochastic process, radiative transfer, the quantum theory of the hydrogen anion, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, turbulence, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves. At the University of Cambridge, he developed a theoretical model explaining the structure of white dwarf stars that took into account the relativistic variation of mass with the velocities of electrons that comprise their degenerate matter. He showed that the mass of a white dwarf could not exceed 1.44 times that of the Sun – the Chandrasekhar limit. Chandrasekhar revised the models of stellar dynamics first outlined by Jan Oort and others by considering the effects of fluctuating gravitational fields within the Milky Way on stars rotating about the galactic centre. His solution to this complex dynamical problem involved a set of twenty partial differential equations, describing a new quantity he termed "dynamical friction", which has the dual effects of decelerating the star and helping to stabilize clusters of stars. Chandrasekhar extended this analysis to the interstellar medium, showing that clouds of galactic gas and dust are distributed very unevenly.Chandrasekhar studied at Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai) and the University of Cambridge. A long-time professor at the University of Chicago, he did some of his studies at the Yerkes Observatory, and served as editor of The Astrophysical Journal from 1952 to 1971. He was on the faculty at Chicago from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84, and was the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics.WEB,weblink Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov, 2017-10-19,

Early life and education

Chandrasekhar was born in Lahore on 19 October 1910 of the British Raj (present-day Pakistan) in a Tamil Brahmin family,WEB,weblink Who was S Chandrasekhar?, 19 October 2017, The Indian Express, en, 2019-01-13, to Sita Balakrishnan (1891–1931) and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar (1885–1960)WEB,weblink Subramanyan Chandrasekhar Biographical, NobelPrize.org, en-US, 2019-09-24, who was stationed in Lahore as Deputy Auditor General of the Northwestern Railways at the time of Chandrasekhar's birth. He had two elder sisters, Rajalakshmi and Balaparvathi, three younger brothers, Vishwanathan, Balakrishnan, and Ramanathan, and four younger sisters, Sarada, Vidya, Savitri, and Sundari. His paternal uncle was the Indian physicist and Nobel laureate Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman. His mother was devoted to intellectual pursuits, had translated Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House into Tamil and is credited with arousing Chandra's intellectual curiosity at an early age.WEB,weblink S Chandrasekhar: Why Google honours him, www.aljazeera.com, 2017-10-18, The family moved from Lahore to Allahabad in 1916, and finally settled in Madras in 1918.Chandrasekhar was tutored at home until the age of 12. In middle school his father taught him mathematics and physics and his mother taught him Tamil. He later attended the Hindu High School, Triplicane, Madras during the years 1922–25. Subsequently, he studied at Presidency College, Madras (affiliated to the University of Madras) from 1925 to 1930, writing his first paper, "The Compton Scattering and the New Statistics", in 1929 after being inspired by a lecture by Arnold Sommerfeld.JOURNAL, Trehan, Surindar Kumar,weblink Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar 1910–1995, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Indian National Science Academy, 23, 101–119, 1995, He obtained his bachelor's degree, BSc (Hon.), in physics, in June 1930. In July 1930, Chandrasekhar was awarded a Government of India scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge, where he was admitted to Trinity College, secured by R. H. Fowler with whom he communicated his first paper. During his travels to England, Chandrasekhar spent his time working out the statistical mechanics of the degenerate electron gas in white dwarf stars, providing relativistic corrections to Fowler's previous work (see Legacy below).

University of Cambridge

In his first year at Cambridge, as a research student of Fowler, Chandrasekhar spent his time calculating mean opacities and applying his results to the construction of an improved model for the limiting mass of the degenerate star. At the meetings of the Royal Astronomical Society, he met E. A. Milne. At the invitation of Max Born he spent the summer of 1931, his second year of post-graduate studies, at Born's institute at Göttingen, working on opacities, atomic absorption coefficients, and model stellar photospheres. On the advice of P. A. M. Dirac, he spent his final year of graduate studies at the Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, where he met Niels Bohr.After receiving a bronze medal for his work on degenerate stars, in the summer of 1933, Chandrasekhar was awarded his PhD degree at Cambridge with a thesis among his four papers on rotating self-gravitating polytropes. On 9 October, he was elected to a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College for the period 1933–1937, becoming only the second Indian to receive a Trinity Fellowship after Srinivasa Ramanujan 16 years earlier. He had been so certain of failing to obtain the fellowship that he had already made arrangements to study under Milne that autumn at Oxford, even going to the extent of renting a flat there.During this time, Chandrasekhar became acquainted with British physicist Sir Arthur Eddington. Eddington took an interest in his work, but in January, 1935, gave a talk severely criticizing Chandrasekhar's work (see #Dispute with Eddington and Chandrasekhar–Eddington dispute).

Career and research

Early career

In 1935, Chandrasekhar was invited by the director of the Harvard Observatory, Harlow Shapley, to be a visiting lecturer in theoretical astrophysics for a three-month period. He travelled to the United States in December. During his visit to Harvard, Chandrasekhar greatly impressed Shapley, but declined his offer of a Harvard research fellowship. At the same time, Chandrasekhar met Gerard Kuiper, a noted Dutch astrophysical observationalist who was then a leading authority on white dwarfs. Kuiper had recently been recruited by Otto Struve, the director of the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, which was run by the University of Chicago, and the university's president, Robert Maynard Hutchins. Having known of Chandrasekhar, Struve was then considering him for one of three faculty posts in astrophysics, along with Kuiper; the other opening had been filled by Bengt Stromgren, a Danish theorist. Following a recommendation from Kuiper, Struve invited Chandrasekhar to Yerkes in March 1936 and offered him the job. Though Chandrasekhar was keenly interested, he initially declined the offer and left for England; after Hutchins sent a radiogram to Chandrasekhar during the voyage, he finally accepted, returning to Yerkes as an assistant professor of Theoretical Astrophysics in December 1936. Hutchins also intervened on an occasion where Chandra's participation on teaching a course organised by Struve, was vetoed by the dean Henry Gale based on a racial prejudice; Hutchins said "By all means have Mr.Chandrasekhar teach".BOOK,weblink 10.17226/5859, Biographical Memoirs, 1997, 978-0-309-05788-2, Chandrasekhar remained at the University of Chicago for his entire career. He was promoted to associate professor in 1941 and to full professor two years later at the age of 33. In 1946, when Princeton University offered Chandrasekhar a position vacated by Henry Norris Russell with a salary double that of Chicago's, Hutchins incremented his salary matching with that of Princeton's and persuaded Chandrasekhar to stay in Chicago. In 1952, he became Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics and Enrico Fermi Institute, upon Enrico Fermi's invitation. In 1953, he and his wife, Lalitha Chandrasekhar, took American citizenship.NEWS,weblink S Chandrashekhar, India's great astrophysicist: Why Google Doodle is celebrating the Nobel prize winner, 19 October 2017, The Financial Express, 2017-10-19, en-US, After the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research (LASR) was built by NASA in 1966 at the university, Chandrasekhar occupied one of the four corner offices on the second floor. (The other corners housed John A. Simpson, Peter Meyer, and Eugene N. Parker.) Chandrasekhar lived at 4800 Lake Shore Drive after the high-rise apartment complex was built in the late 1960s, and later at 5550 Dorchester Building.

Dispute with Eddington

After graduating from Cambridge, Chandrasekhar, who was in close contact with Arthur Eddington, presented a full solution to his stellar equation at the Royal Astronomical Society meeting in 1935. Eddington booked a talk right after Chandrasekhar, where he openly criticized Chandrasekhar's theory. This depressed Chandrasekhar and sparked a scientific dispute. Eddington refused to accept a limit for the mass of a star and was proposing an alternative model.JOURNAL, Wali, Kameshwar C., 1982-10-01, Chandrasekhar vs. Eddington—an unanticipated confrontation,weblink Physics Today, en, 35, 10, 33–40, 10.1063/1.2914790, 1982PhT....35j..33W, 0031-9228, free, Chandrasekhar sought support from prominent physicists like Léon Rosenfeld, Niels Bohr and Christian Møller who found Eddington's arguments lacking. The tension persisted through 1930s, as Eddington continued to openly criticize Chandrasekhar during meetings and the two compared each other's theories in publications. Chandrasekhar ultimately completed his theory of white dwarfs in 1939, receiving praise from others in the field. Eddington died in 1944, and despite their disagreements, Chandrasekhar continued to state that he admired Eddington and considered him a friend.

World War II

During World War II, Chandrasekhar worked at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. While there, he worked on problems of ballistics, resulting in reports such as 1943's (:s:On the Decay of Plane Shock Waves|On the decay of plane shock waves), (:s:Optimum height for the bursting of a 105mm shell|Optimum height for the bursting of a 105mm shell), (:s:On the Conditions for the Existence of Three Shock Waves|On the Conditions for the Existence of Three Shock Waves),REPORT, Chandrasekhar, S., 1943, On the conditions for the existence of three shock waves, Ballistic Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, 367, (:s:On the Determination of the Velocity of a Projectile from the Beat Waves Produced by Interference with the Waves of Modified Frequency Reflected from the Projectile|On the Determination of the Velocity of a Projectile from the Beat Waves Produced by Interference with the Waves of Modified Frequency Reflected from the Projectile)REPORT, Chandrasekhar, S., 1943, On the Determination of the Velocity of a Projectile from the Beat Waves Produced by Interference with the Waves of Modified Frequency Reflected from the Projectile, Ballistic Research Laboratory, Aberdeen Proving Ground, 365, and (:s:The normal reflection of a blast wave|The normal reflection of a blast wave).REPORT, Chandrasekhar, S., 1943, Optimum Height for the Bursting of a 105mm Shell, BRL-MR-139, Army Ballistic Research Lab Aberdeen Procing Ground MD,weblinkweblink dead, 29 November 2019, WEB, O'Connor, J. J., Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar,weblink Biographies, School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland, 21 May 2012, Robertson, E. F, Chandrasekhar's expertise in hydrodynamics led Robert Oppenheimer to invite him to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, but delays in the processing of his security clearance prevented him from contributing to the project. It has been rumoured that he visited the Calutron project.

Philosophy of systematization

He wrote that his scientific research was motivated by his desire to participate in the progress of different subjects in science to the best of his ability, and that the prime motive underlying his work was systematization. "What a scientist tries to do essentially is to select a certain domain, a certain aspect, or a certain detail, and see if that takes its appropriate place in a general scheme which has form and coherence; and, if not, to seek further information which would help him to do that".The Works of the Mind, p.176, edited by Robert B. Heywood, University of Chicago Press, 1947.Chandrasekhar developed a unique style of mastering several fields of physics and astrophysics; consequently, his working life can be divided into distinct periods. He would exhaustively study a specific area, publish several papers in it and then write a book summarizing the major concepts in the field. He would then move on to another field for the next decade and repeat the pattern. Thus he studied stellar structure, including the theory of white dwarfs, during the years 1929 to 1939, and subsequently focused on stellar dynamics, theory of Brownian motion from 1939 to 1943. Next, he concentrated on the theory of radiative transfer and the quantum theory of the negative ion of hydrogen from 1943 to 1950. This was followed by sustained work on turbulence and hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability from 1950 to 1961. In the 1960s, he studied both the equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, and general relativity. During the period, 1971 to 1983 he studied the mathematical theory of black holes, and, finally, during the late 80s, he worked on the theory of colliding gravitational waves.

Work with students

Chandra worked closely with his students and expressed pride in the fact that over a 50-year period (from roughly 1930 to 1980), the average age of his co-author collaborators had remained the same, at around 30. He insisted that students address him as "Prof. Chandrasekhar" until they received their PhD degree, after which time they (as other colleagues) were encouraged to address him as "Chandra". When Chandrasekhar was working at the Yerkes Observatory in 1940s, he would drive {{convert|150|mi|km}} to and from every weekend to teach a course at the University of Chicago. Two of the students who took the course, Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang, won the Nobel prize before he could get one for himself. Regarding classroom interactions during his lectures, noted astrophysicist Carl Sagan stated from firsthand experience that "frivolous questions" from unprepared students were "dealt with in the manner of a summary execution", while questions of merit "were given serious attention and response".BOOK, Chandra : a biography of S. Chandrasekhar, C.), Wali, K. C. (Kameshwar), 1991, University of Chicago Press, 978-0226870540, Chicago, 9, 21297960,weblink

Other activities

From 1952 to 1971 Chandrasekhar was editor of The Astrophysical Journal.JOURNAL, Helmut A. Abt, 1 December 1995, Obituary – Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan, Astrophysical Journal, 454, 551, 1995ApJ...454..551A, 10.1086/176507, 0004-637X, When Eugene Parker submitted a paper on his discovery of solar wind in 1957, two eminent reviewers rejected the paper. However, since Chandra as an editor could not find any mathematical flaws in Parker's work, he went ahead and published the paper in 1958.JOURNAL, Parker, E. N., Dynamics of the Interplanetary Gas and Magnetic Fields., The Astrophysical Journal, 1 November 1958, 128, 664, 10.1086/146579, 1958ApJ...128..664P,weblink 0004-637X, During the years 1990 to 1995, Chandrasekhar worked on a project devoted to explaining the detailed geometric arguments in Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica using the language and methods of ordinary calculus. The effort resulted in the book Newton's Principia for the Common Reader, published in 1995. Chandrasekhar was an honorary member of the International Academy of Science.{{citation needed|date=November 2015}}Chandrasekhar also worked on collision of gravitational waves,JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., Xanthopoulos, B. C., 1985, Some exact solutions of gravitational waves coupled with fluid motions, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 402, 1823, 205–224, 10.1098/rspa.1985.0115, 1985RSPSA.402..205C, 120942390, and algebraically special perturbations.JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., 1984, On algebraically special perturbations of black holes, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences, 392, 1802, 1–13, 10.1098/rspa.1984.0021, 1984RSPSA.392....1C, 122585164,

Personal life

Chandrasekhar was the nephew of C. V. Raman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.Chandrasekhar married Lalitha Doraiswamy in September 1936. He met her as a fellow student at Presidency College. He became a naturalised citizen of the U.S. in 1953. Many considered him as warm, positive, generous, unassuming, meticulous, and open to debate, while some others as private, intimidating, impatient and stubborn regarding non-scientific matters, and unforgiving to those who ridiculed his work.BOOK, S. Chandrasekhar : the man behind the legend, 1997, Imperial College Press, Wali, K. C. (Kameshwar C.), 978-1860940385, London, 107, 38847561,weblink Chandrasekhar died of a heart attack at the University of Chicago Hospital in 1995, having survived a prior heart attack in 1975. He was survived by his wife, who died on 2 September 2013 at the age of 102.NEWS, The Hindu,weblink Nobel laureate's wife Lalitha Chandrasekhar dies at 102, 7 September 2013, She was a serious student of literature and western classical music.Once when involved in a discussion about the Bhagavad Gita, Chandrasekhar said: "I should like to preface my remarks with a personal statement in order that my later remarks will not be misunderstood. I consider myself an atheist".S. Chandrasekhar: the man behind the legend, Kameshwar C. Wali. Imperial College Press (1 January 1997) {{ISBN|978-1860940385}} This was also confirmed many times in his other talks. Kameshwar C. Wali quoted him saying: “I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist.”BOOK, Chandra: A Biography of Chandrasekhar,weblink registration, 1991, University of Chicago Press, 9780226870557, 304, Kameshwar C. Wali, SC: I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist., In an interview with Kevin Krisciunas at the University of Chicago, on 6 October 1987, Chandrasekhar commented: "Of course, he (Otto Struve) knew I was an atheist, and he never brought up the subject with me".WEB,weblink Interview with Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, American Institute of Physics, 13 January 2010, 2 February 2015,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150202064758weblink">weblink dead, Chandrasekhar was a vegetarian.NEWS, Sullivan, Walter, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 84, Is Dead; Noble Laureate Uncovered 'White Dwarfs',weblink 13 September 2020, The New York Times, 22 August 1995,

Awards, honours and legacy

Nobel prize

Chandrasekhar was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his studies on the physical processes important to the structure and evolution of stars. Chandrasekhar accepted this honour, but was upset the citation mentioned only his earliest work, seeing it as a denigration of a lifetime's achievement. He shared it with William A. Fowler.

Other awards and honors

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• Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1944
• American Philosophical Society, Member (1945)WEB,weblink APS Member History, search.amphilsoc.org,
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Member (1946)WEB,weblink Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 9 February 2023,
• Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1949)WEB, Grants, Prizes and Awards,weblink American Astronomical Society, 24 February 2011, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20100124125308weblink">weblink 24 January 2010,
• Bruce Medal (1952)WEB, Past Winners of the Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal,weblink Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 24 February 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110721092933weblink">weblink 21 July 2011, dead,
• Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1953)WEB, Winners of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society,weblink Royal Astronomical Society, 24 February 2011, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110525064844weblink">weblink 25 May 2011,
• United States National Academy of Sciences, Member (1955)WEB,weblink S. Chandrasekhar, www.nasonline.org,
• Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1957)WEB, Past Recipients of the Rumford Prize,weblink American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 24 February 2011, 27 September 2012,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120927075008weblink">weblink dead,
• National Medal of Science, USA (1966)WEB,weblink The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details – NSF – National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov,
• Padma Vibhushan (1968)
• Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1971)WEB, Henry Draper Medal,weblink National Academy of Sciences, 24 February 2011, dead,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20130126003930weblink">weblink 26 January 2013,
• Marian Smoluchowski Medal (1973)
• Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1984)
• Gordon J. Laing Award (1989)
• Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement (1990)WEB, Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement, www.achievement.org, American Academy of Achievement,weblink
• Jansky Lectureship before the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
• Humboldt Prize{{when|date=November 2015}}

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Legacy

Chandrasekhar's most notable work is on the astrophysical Chandrasekhar limit. The limit gives the maximum mass of a white dwarf star, ~1.44 solar masses, or equivalently, the minimum mass that must be exceeded for a star to collapse into a neutron star or black hole (following a supernova). The limit was first calculated by Chandrasekhar in 1930 during his maiden voyage from India to Cambridge, England for his graduate studies. In 1979, NASA named the third of its four "Great Observatories" after Chandrasekhar. This followed a naming contest which attracted 6,000 entries from fifty states and sixty-one countries. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on 23 July 1999. The Chandrasekhar number, an important dimensionless number of magnetohydrodynamics, is named after him. The asteroid 1958 Chandra is also named after Chandrasekhar. The Himalayan Chandra Telescope is named after him. In the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society of London, R. J. Tayler wrote: "Chandrasekhar was a classical applied mathematician whose research was primarily applied in astronomy and whose like will probably never be seen again."JOURNAL, Tayler, R. J., Roger Tayler, 10.1098/rsbm.1996.0006, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 42, 80–94, 1996, 58736242, 0080-4606, free, Chandrasekhar supervised 45 PhD students.JOURNAL, Singh, Virendra, S Chandrasekhar: His Life and Science, Resonance (journal), Resonance, 26 October 2011, 16, 10, 960, 10.1007/s12045-011-0094-0, 119945333, 0971-8044, After his death, his wife Lalitha Chandrasekhar made a gift of his Nobel Prize money to the University of Chicago towards the establishment of the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Memorial Fellowship. First awarded in the year 2000, this fellowship is given annually to an outstanding applicant to graduate school in the PhD programs of the department of physics or the department of astronomy and astrophysics.WEB,weblink Academics | Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics | The University of Chicago, astrophysics.uchicago.edu, S. Chandrasekhar Prize of Plasma Physics is an award given by Association of Asia Pacific Physical Societies (AAPS) to outstanding plasma physicists, started in the year 2014.WEB,weblink prizeaward, aappsdpp.org, The Chandra Astrophysics Institute (CAI) is a program offered for high school students who are interested in astrophysics mentored by MIT scientistsWEB, Hartman, Mark, Ashton, Peter, Porro, Irene, Ahmed, Shakib, Kol, Simba, Chandra Astrophysics Institute, MIT OpenCourseWare,weblink 2017-10-20, and sponsored by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.WEB,weblink The Chandra Astrophysics Institute – ChandraBlog – Fresh Chandra News, chandra.harvard.edu, Carl Sagan praised him in the book The Demon-Haunted World: "I discovered what true mathematical elegance is from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar." On 19 October 2017, Google showed a Google Doodle in 28 countries honouring Chandrasekhar's 107th birthday and the Chandrasekhar limit.WEB,weblink S. Chandrasekhar's 107th Birthday, www.google.com, WEB,weblinkweblink 2021-12-11, live, S. Chandrasekhar Google Doodle, Rajamanickam Antonimuthu, 18 October 2017, YouTube, {{cbignore}}In 2010, on account of Chandra's 100th birthday, University of Chicago conducted a symposium titled Chandrasekhar Centennial Symposium 2010 which was attended by leading astrophysicists such as Roger Penrose, Kip Thorne, Freeman Dyson, Jayant V. Narlikar, Rashid Sunyaev, G. Srinivasan, and Clifford Will. Its research talks were published in 2011 as a book titled Fluid flows to Black Holes: A tribute to S Chandrasekhar on his birth centenary.WEB,weblink KPTC Event Video – Colloquia, kersten.uchicago.edu, 2019-01-13, WEB,weblink The 100th anniversary of the birth of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar: Chandrasekhar Centennial Symposium 2010 – Chicago, VideoLectures – VideoLectures.NET, en, 2019-01-13, WEB,weblink NSF Award Search: Award#1039863 – Chandrasekhar Centennial Symposium; Chicago, IL; October 16–17, 2010, www.nsf.gov, 2019-01-13,

Publications

Books

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• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure, 1958, 1939, Dover, New York, 978-0-486-60413-8,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Principles of Stellar Dynamics, 2005, 1942, Dover, New York, 978-0-486-44273-0,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Radiative Transfer,weblink registration, 1960, 1950, Dover, New York, 978-0-486-60590-6,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Plasma Physics, 1975, 1960, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 978-0-226-10084-5,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability, 1981, 1961, Dover, New York, 978-0-486-64071-6,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium, 1987, 1969, Dover, New York, 978-0-486-65258-0,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes, 1998, 1983, Oxford University Press, New York, 978-0-19-850370-5,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Eddington: The Most Distinguished Astrophysicist of His Time, 1983, 1983, Cambridge University Press, 9780521257466,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Truth and Beauty. Aesthetics and Motivations in Science, 1990, 1987, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 978-0-226-10087-6,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Newton's Principia for the Common Reader, 1995, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 978-0-19-851744-3,
• BOOK, Spiegel, E.A., The Theory of Turbulence : Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar's 1954 Lectures, 2011, 1954, Springer, Netherlands, 978-94-007-0117-5,

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Notes

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• JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., The Dynamics of Stellar Systems. I–VIII, The Astrophysical Journal, 90, 1, 1–154, 1939, 1939ApJ....90....1C, 10.1086/144094, 0004-637X, free,
• JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., Stochastic Problems in Physics and Astronomy, Reviews of Modern Physics, 15, 1, 1–89, 1943, 1943RvMP...15....1C, 10.1103/RevModPhys.15.1, 0034-6861,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Classical general relativity, 1993, Royal Society,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., The Role of General Relativity: Retrospect and Prospect, 1979, Proc. IAU Meeting, JOURNAL, 1980HiA.....5...45C, The role of general relativity in astronomy – Retrospect and prospect, Highlights of Astronomy, 5, 45–61, Chandrasekhar, S, 1980, 1539-2996, 10.1017/S1539299600003749, free,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., New methods in stellar dynamics, 1943, New York Academy of Sciences,
• JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., The illumination and polarization of the sunlit sky on Rayleigh scattering, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 1954, 44, 6, 643–728, American Philosophical Society, 10.2307/1005777, 1005777,weblink
• JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., On Stars, their evolution and their stability, Nobel lecture, Reviews of Modern Physics, 1983, 56, 2, 137–147, Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 10.1103/RevModPhys.56.137,weblink
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., New horizons of human knowledge: a series of public talks given at Unesco, 1981, Unesco Press,weblink
• JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., Shakespeare, Newton, and Beethoven: Or, Patterns of Creativity, Current Science, 1975, 70, 9, 810–822, University of Chicago, 24099932,weblink
• JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, S., P.A.M. Dirac on his seventieth birthday, Contemporary Physics, July 1973, 14, 4, 389–394, 10.1080/00107517308210761, 1973ConPh..14..389C,weblink en, 0010-7514,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Heywood, Robert B., The Works of the Mind:The Scientist, 159–179, 1947, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 752682744,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Reminiscences and discoveries on Ramanujan's bust, 1995, Royal Society, B001B12NJ8,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., How one may explore the physical content of the general theory of relativity, 1990, American Mathematical Society, B001B10QTM,

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Journals

Chandrasekhar published around 380 papersJOURNAL,weblink Publications by S. Chandrasekhar, Indian Academy of Sciences, 15 May 2017, 1996JApA...17..269C, Chandrasekhar, S., Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, 1996, 17, 269, in his lifetime. He wrote his first paper in 1928 when he was still an undergraduate student about Compton effectJOURNAL, Thermodynamics of the Compton Effect with Reference to the Interior of the Stars,weblink Indian Journal of Physics, 3, 241–50, 10821/487, and last paper which was accepted for publication just two months before his death was in 1995 which was about non-radial oscillation of stars.JOURNAL, Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan, Ferrari, Valeria, Valeria Ferrari, On the Non-Radial Oscillations of a Star: V. A Fully Relativistic Treatment of a Newtonian Star, Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, The Royal Society, 450, 1939, 8 August 1995, 1364-5021, 10.1098/rspa.1995.0094, 463–475, 1995RSPSA.450..463C, 120769457, The University of Chicago Press published selected papers of Chandrasekhar in seven volumes.{{div col|colwidth=35em}}

• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 1, Stellar structure and stellar atmospheres, 1989, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226100890, registration,weblink
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 2, Radiative transfer and negative ion of hydrogen, 1989, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226100920,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 3, Stochastic, statistical and hydromagnetic problems in Physics and Astronomy, 1989, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226100944, registration,weblink
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 4, Plasma Physics, Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic stability, and applications of the Tensor-Virial theorem, 1989, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226100975, registration,weblink
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 5, Relativistic Astrophysics, 1990, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226100982,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 6, The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes and of Colliding Plane Waves, 1991, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226101019,
• BOOK, Chandrasekhar, S., Selected Papers, Vol 7, The non-radial oscillations of star in General Relativity and other writings, 1997, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 9780226101040,

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Books and articles about Chandrasekhar

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• BOOK, Miller, Arthur I., Empire of the Stars: Friendship, Obsession, and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes, 2005, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 978-0-618-34151-1, registration,weblink
• BOOK, Srinivasan, G., G. Srinivasan (physicist), From White Dwarfs to Black Holes: The Legacy of S. Chandrasekhar, 1997, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 978-0-226-76996-7,
• JOURNAL, Penrose, Roger Penrose, Roger, Chandrasekhar, Black Holes and Singularities, Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, 17, 3–4, 213–231, 1996, 1996JApA...17..213P, 10.1007/BF02702305, 0250-6335, 10.1.1.496.2529, 119807977,weblink 4 September 2017,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20180723153030weblink">weblink 23 July 2018, dead,
• JOURNAL, Parker, Eugene Parker, E., S. Chandrasekhar and Magnetohydrodynamics, Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy, 17, 3–4, 147–166, 1996, 1996JApA...17..147P, 10.1007/BF02702301, 0250-6335, 122374065,
• BOOK, Wali, Kameshwar C., Kameshwar C. Wali, Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar,weblink registration, 1991, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 978-0-226-87054-0,
• BOOK, Wali, Kameshwar C., Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend – Chandra Remembered, 1997, imperial College Press, London, 978-1-86094-038-5, registration,weblink
• BOOK, Wali, Kameshwar C., A Quest For Perspectives, 2001, World Scientific Publishing Co. Ptd Ltd., Singapore, 978-1-86094-201-3,
• BOOK, Wali, Kameshwar C., S Chandrasekhar: Selected Correspondence and Conversations, 2020, World Scientific Publishing Co. Ptd Ltd., 978-9811208324,
• JOURNAL, Wignesan, T., The Man who Dwarfed the Stars, 2004, The Asianists' Asia, 1298-0358,
• BOOK, Venkataraman, G., Chandrasekhar and His Limit, 1992, Universities Press, Hyderabad, India, 978-81-7371-035-3,
• BOOK, Saikia, D J., etal, Fluid flows to Black Holes: A tribute to S Chandrasekhar on his birth centenary, 2011, World Scientific Publishing Co. Ptd Ltd., Singapore, 978-981-4299-57-2,
• BOOK, Ramnath, Radhika, S. Chandrasekhar: Man of Science, 2012, Harpercollins, B00C3EWIME,
• BOOK, Kameshwar, C Wali, A Scientific Autobiography: S Chandrasekhar, A Scientific Autobiography: S Chandrasekhar. Edited by K C Wali. Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd, 2011, 978-981-4299-57-2, 2010sasc.book.....W, Alic, Kameshwar C, 10.1142/7686,
• BOOK, Salwi, Dilip, S. Chandrasekhar: The scholar scientist, 2004, Rupa, 978-8129104915,
• BOOK, Pandey, Rakesh Kumar, Chandrasekhar Limit: Size of White Dwarfs, 2017, Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 978-3330317666,

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References

{{Reflist|30em}}

Further reading

• JOURNAL, Struve, Otto, Otto Struve, The Award of the Bruce Gold Medal to Dr. S. Chandrasekhar, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1 April 1952, 64, 377, 55, 10.1086/126422, 1952PASP...64...55S, 119668926,weblinkfull/seri/PASP./00640000055.000.html, 0004-6280, free,
• JOURNAL, Parker, E. N., Eugene Parker, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. 1910-1995, Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 1997, 72, 28–49,weblink

Obituaries

• JOURNAL, Devorkin, David H., Obituary: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, 1910-1995, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 1 January 1996, 28, 4, 1448, 1996BAAS...28.1448D,weblinkfull/seri/BAAS./00280001448.000.html,
• JOURNAL, McCrea, W., Obituary: Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, The Observatory, 1 April 1996, 116, 121–124, 1996Obs...116..121M,weblinkfull/seri/Obs../01160000121.000.html, 0029-7704,
  • Comment: JOURNAL, Cronin, J. W., Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, The Observatory, 1 February 1998, 118, 24,weblinkfull/seri/Obs../01180000024.000.html, 0029-7704,
• JOURNAL, Garstang, R. H., Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 1 February 1997, 109, 73–77, 10.1086/133864, 1997PASP..109...73G, 123095503,weblinkfull/seri/PASP./01090000073.000.html, 0004-6280, free,
• JOURNAL, Spruit, H. C., A 'curve of growth' of astronomers on the Citation Index, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1 March 1996, 37, 1–9, 1996QJRAS..37....1S,weblinkfull/seri/QJRAS/00370000261.000.html, 0035-8738,

External links

{{sister project links|b=no|n=no|v=no|wikt=no|author=yes|commonscat=yes|d=Q148109}}

• Great Indians: Professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar – Video of Chandra's last interview at Chicago.
• Audio – Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar(1988) The founding of general relativity and its excellence.
• Audio – Cain/Gay (2010) Astronomy Cast Chandrasekhar.
• National Academy of Sciences biography
• Harvard's site on Chandrasekhar
• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
• weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20060528140547weblink">Subramaniam Chandrashekhar
• Bruce Medal page
• Oral History interview transcript with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on 17 May 1977, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - Session I
• Oral History interview transcript with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on 18 May 1977, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - Session II
• Oral History interview transcript with Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on 31 October 1977, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives - Session III
• Oral History interview transcript for Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on 6 October 1987, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Concordia University Honorary Degree Citation, June 1988, Concordia University Records Management and Archives
• Free PDF of Radiative Transfer on Archive.org
• Guide to the Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Papers 1913-2011 at the University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center
• {{Nobelprize}}

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