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Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan

Born Lahore, British India (now Pakistan) 10 October 1910

Died Chicago, Illinois, USA, 21 August 1995

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Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers

Abstract

Indian-American theoretical astrophysicist S. Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics (with William Fowler) for work done in the 1930s, which established an absolute upper mass limit, now called the Chandrasekhar limit, for an astronomical object in which the pressure support comes from electrons being crowded as closely together as quantum mechanics permits. This limit applies to white dwarf stars, such as the Sun will eventually become, and to the cores of more massive stars that then collapse into neutron stars or black holes.

Roy H. Garstang: deceased.

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Selected References

  • Garstang, R.H. 1997. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995). Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 109: 73–77.

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  • Parker, E.N. 1997. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences 72: 29–48.

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  • Saikia, D.J., and Virginia Trimble, eds. 2011. Fluid Flows to Black Holes: A Tribute to S. Chandrasekhar on his Birth Centenary. Singapore: World Scientific Books.

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  • Tayler, R.J. 1996. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 42: 79–94.

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  • Wali, K.C. 1991. Chandra: A biography of S. Chandrasekhar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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  • ———. 2010. A scientific autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar. Singapore: World Scientific.

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  • ———. 2020. S. Chandrasekhar: Selected correspondence and conversations. Singapore: World Scientific.

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Garstang, R.H. (2022). Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan. In: Nicholson, P.D., Bartlett, J.L. (eds) Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0738-1_263-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0738-1_263-5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-0738-1

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan
    Published:
    29 June 2022

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0738-1_263-5

  2. Original

    Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan
    Published:
    22 January 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0738-1_263-4