| Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910 - 1995) |
Born in Lahore, nephew of Sir Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman (CV Raman), who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.
Chandrasekhar was educated at Presidency College, at the University of Madras, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. From 1933 to 1937 he held a position at Trinity. Chandrasekhar joined the staff of the University of Chicago, rising from assistant professor of astrophysics to Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Astrophysics and became an U.S. citizen in 1953.
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Chandrasekhar determined what is known as the Chandrasekhar limit - that a star having a mass more than 1.44 times that of the Sun does not form a white dwarf but instead continues to collapse, blows off its gaseous envelope in a supernova explosion, and becomes a neutron star. An even more massive star continues to collapse and becomes a black hole. These calculations contributed to the eventual understanding of supernovas, neutron stars, and black holes. Chandrasekhar was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1953 and the Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1962. He was given a Noble Prize in 1983.
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| Category filed under: Scientist |
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