Dr. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was a world famous astrophysicist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1983 for his outstanding researches in the field of astronomy related to the structure and evolution of stars. He shared this prize with an American professor William Fowler. Do you know why he received this honour and what are his contributions to the astrophysics?
Prof. Chandrasekhar was born on Oct 19th, 1910 in Lahore. He was educated at Presidency College, Madras University. He got his doctorate from Trinity College, Cambridge. From 1933 to 1937 he worked on stellar evolution. His genius is established from the fact that he became a Fellow of Trinity College at a young age of 24. And at the age of 25 he had put forth his theory on dying stars which startled the whole world.
In 1938 he became an Assistant Professor in Chicago University and in 1953 acquired American citizenship. In the same year he was given the Gold medal of Royal Astronomical Society.
In 1947 Dr. Chandrasekhar became a Professor in Chicago University and the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Astrology in 1952. His genius is evident from the fact that his book An Introduction to the study of Stellar Structure, published in 1939 is still used as a reference book for students of astrophysics all over the world.
In 1973 he was made a member of the Swedish Academy that awards the Nobel Prizes. His findings on White Dwarfs are internationally acclaimed. ‘Chandrasekhar Limit’ that deals with the limiting mass of the stars is again an epoch making discovery by him.
The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes was his most important work, published in 1983. His latest book was Newton’s Principia for the common reader. Prof. Chandrasekhar passed away as an American citizen in the year 1995, within a few weeks of the publication of this book.