Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Chandra was one of the great astrophysicists of the 20th century. He was famous for spending a decade on one branch of physics, writing the definitive monograph on the subject, and then moving on to dominate yet another field. The Chandrasekhar Limit expresses the maximum mass a star of a particular composition can have before collapsing under its own weight; the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarf (electron degenerate) stars is around 1.4 solar masses, while the limit for neutron degenerate matter is slightly higher. If the star is over the limit, it can "tend .. towards a completely collapsed state", in modern terms a black hole. Chandra discovered the limit during a sea voyage from India to England in 1930. In a famous confrontation at the Royal Astronomical Society on 1935 Jan 11, Sir Arthur Eddington, the astronomical titan of his time, said `I think there should be a law of Nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way!' (Observatory LVIII, p 38). Chandra left Cambridge for Chicago, but lived to see his vindication.

Chandra's career

1910 Oct 19	Born in Lahore to Sita Balakrishnan and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar.
1918	Moved to Madras
1925-1930	B.Sc. Physics student at Presidency College, Madras
1930	Sea voyage to England; discovers C. Limit
1929-1939	1: Studies of White Dwarf Stars
1930-1933	Ph.D. student at Cambridge, under R.H. Fowler
1931-1932	Papers on white dwarf stars
1935 Jan 11	Eddington argues with Chandra at the RAS
1936 Sep	Married Lalitha Doraiswamy
1937 Jan	Moved to Yerkes Observatory, University of Chicago
1939	Publishes Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure
1938-1943	2: Studies of Stellar Dynamics
1942	Publishes Principles of Stellar Dynamics
1943-1950	3: Studies of Radiative Transfer
1950	Publishes Radiative Transfer
1952	Editor of Ap.J. (till 1971)
1952-1961	4: Studies of Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability
1961	Publishes Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability
1961-1968	5: Studies of Figures of Equilibrium
1968	Publishes Ellipsoidal Figures of Equilibrium
1962-1971	6: Studies of GR and Relativistic Astrophysics
1974-1983	7: Studies of the Mathematical Theory of Black Holes
1983	Publishes The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes
1983	Nobel prize for physics
1995 Aug 21	Died in Chicago

Some of Chandra's key papers on dense matter and relativity

The following list is taken from Chandra's own summary at http://www.nobel.se/laureates/physics-1983.html
'The highly collapsed configurations of a stellar mass', Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 91, 456-66 (1931).
'The maximum mass of ideal white dwarfs', Astrophys. J., 74, 81 - 2 (1931).
'The density of white dwarfstars', Phil. Mag., 11, 592 - 96 (1931).
'Some remarks on the state of matter in the interior of stars', Z. f. Astrophysik, 5, 321-27 (1932).

'The physical state of matter in the interior of stars', Obseroatoy, 57, 93 - 9 (1934)
'Stellar configurations with degenerate cores', Observatoy, 57, 373 - 77 (1934).
'The highly collapsed configurations of a stellar mass' (second paper), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 95, 207 - 25 (1935).

'Stellar configurations with degenerate cores', Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 95, 226-60 (1935).

'Stellar configurations with degenerate cores' (second paper), Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 95, 676 - 93 (1935).

'The pressure in the interior of a star', Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 96, 644 - 47 (1936).

'On the maximum possible central radiation pressure in a star of a given mass', Observatoy, 59, 47 - 8 (1936).

'Dynamical instability of gaseous masses approaching the Schwarzschild limit in general relativity', Phys. Rev. Lett., 12, 114 - 16 (1964); Erratum, Phys. Rev. Lett., 12, 437 - 38 (1964).

'The dynamical instability of the white-dwarf configurations approaching the limiting mass' (with Robert F. Tooper), Astrophys. J., 139, 1396 - 98 (1964).

'The dynamical instability of gaseous masses approaching the Schwarzschild limit in general relativity', Astrophys. J., 140, 417 - 33 (1964).

'Solutions of two problems in the theory of gravitational radiation', Phys. Rev. Lett., 24, 611 - 15 (1970); Erratum, Phys. Rev. Lett., 24, 762 (1970).

'The effect of graviational radiation on the secular stability of the Maclaurin spheroid', Astrophys. J., 161, 561 - 69 (1970).