Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan (October 19, 1910 - ; Pakistan)

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born in Lahore (now Pakistan) and is noted as being both an astrophysicist and a theoretical physicist. Chandrasekhar's education involved study at Trinity College, Cambridge which he attended in 1930. After Trinity, Chandrasekhar went to the University of Chicago where joined the faculty as an assistant professor of astrophysics in 1938 and then rose to the position of morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor of Astrophysics in 1952. In 1953, Chandrasekhar became an American citizen and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in that same year. In 1963, Chandrasekhar was also awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society.

Chandrasekhar's work allowed for a better understanding of supernovas, neutron stars as well as black holes. His earlier work focused on the interpretation of broad bright lines in the spectra of expanding stars. Later research led Chandrasekhar to white dwarf stars, chemical composition of stars and the theory of radiation transfer in the atmosphere of stars and planets. His research on stellar systems led to the writing of Principles of Stellar Dynamics, in 1943.

Chandrasekhar's work on dwarf stars led to what is known today as the Chandrasekhar limit which states that any stars whose mass is in excess of 1.44 times that of the sun continues to collapse while blowing off its gaseous envelope resulting in a supernova explosion. This results in the formation of a neutron star rather than a white dwarf star. The Chandrasekhar limit goes on to say that a star having an extremely excessive mass continues to collapse and eventually becomes a black hole. In 1983, Chandrrasekhar, along with William A. Fowler was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on white dwarf stars.

In regard to mathematics, Chandrasekhar's interests led him to investigate convention and turbulence in fluids and the stability of fluid motions while in the presence of magnetic forces, heat sources and rotation. Chandrasekhar also wrote The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes, in 1983 in an attempt to develop the mathematical theory of black holes.

Chandrasekhar's most important work was entitled, An Introduction to the Study of Stellar Structure, written in 1939 and served as a compilation of investigations on stellar interiors and models. Some of his other works included, Radiative Transfer, (1950), Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability, (1961) and Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science, (1987) (Britannica, 3:79, 1994; Encyclopedia Americana, 6:275, 1991: and Barba, p. 64, 1995).