Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Who was Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar?

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, FRS, was an Indian-American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries leading to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him.

Chandrasekhar in distinct periods worked in various areas including stellar structure, theory of white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, theory of radiative transfer, quantum theory of the negative ion of Hydrogen, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves.

Chandrasekhar studied at Presidency College, Madras and University of Cambridge. He served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84.

Chandrasekhar married Lalitha Doraiswamy in September 1936. He had met her as a fellow student at Presidency College, Madras.

Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.

He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1953.