S. Chandrasekhar

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
For other people with the same name, see Chandrasekhar.
In this Indian name, the name Subrahmanyan is a patronymic, not a family name, and the person should be referred to by the given name, Chandrasekhar.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, FRS[1] (Tamil: சுப்பிரமணியன் சந்திரசேகர் ; /ˌtʃʌndrəˈʃeɪkər/; 19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995),[3] was an Indian astrophysicist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler "for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". His mathematical treatment of stellar evolution yielded many of the best current theoretical models of the later evolutionary stages of massive stars and black holes.[4][5] The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Born
19 October 1910
Lahore, Punjab, British India
Died
21 August 1995 (aged 84)
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Residence
United States, India
Citizenship
India, United States
Alma mater
University of Madras
Trinity College, Cambridge
Known for
Chandrasekhar limit
Chandra X-ray Observatory
Chandrasekhar friction
Chandrasekhar number
Chandrasekhar's H-function
1958 Chandra
Chandrasekhar tensor
Schönberg–Chandrasekhar limit
Chandrasekhar equation
Chandrasekhar virial equations
Chandrasekhar's X- and Y-function
Discrete Ordinates Method
Chandrasekhar's white dwarf equation
Chandrasekhar's Variational Principle
Awards
FRS (1944)[1]
Adams Prize (1948)
Nobel Prize in Physics (1983)
Copley Medal (1984)
National Medal of Science (1966)
Royal Medal (1962)
Padma Vibhushan (1968)
Heineman Prize (1974)
Scientific career
Fields
Astrophysics
General Relativity
Fluid dynamics
Radiation
Institutions
University of Chicago
Yerkes Observatory
Ballistic Research Laboratory
University of Cambridge
Thesis
Polytropic distributions (1933)
Doctoral advisor
Ralph H. Fowler
Arthur Eddington
Doctoral students
Donald Edward Osterbrock
Guido Münch
Roland Winston
Jeremiah P. Ostriker
Jerome Kristian
Yousef Sobouti
Anne Barbara Underhill
Arthur Code
Surindar Kumar Trehan[2]
Signature

Chandrasekhar worked on a wide variety of physical problems in his lifetime, contributing to the contemporary understanding of stellar structure, white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, stochastic process, radiative transfer, the quantum theory of the hydrogen anion, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, turbulence, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity, mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves.[6] At the University of Cambridge, he developed a theoretical model explaining the structure of white dwarf stars that took into account the relativistic variation of mass with the velocities of electrons that comprise their degenerate matter. He showed that the mass of a white dwarf could not exceed 1.44 times that of the Sun – the Chandrasekhar limit. Chandrasekhar revised the models of stellar dynamics first outlined by Jan Oort and others by considering the effects of fluctuating gravitational fields within the Milky Way on stars rotating about the galactic centre. His solution to this complex dynamical problem involved a set of twenty partial differential equations, describing a new quantity he termed ‘dynamical friction’, which has the dual effects of decelerating the star and helping to stabilize clusters of stars. Chandrasekhar extended this analysis to the interstellar medium, showing that clouds of galactic gas and dust are distributed very unevenly.
Chandrasekhar studied at Presidency College, Madras (now Chennai) and the University of Cambridge. He spent most of his career at the University of Chicago, spending some time in its Yerkes Observatory, and serving as editor of The Astrophysical Journal from 1952 to 1971. He served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until hi