Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar-NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory
Hi JPR:
Thanks for the news about NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and here is some more info on the man.
PS:Does this mean you are back in circulation now,if so welcome back.<g>
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'Chandra was one of the great astrophysicists of the 20th century. He was famous for spending a decade on one branch of physics, writing the definitive monograph on the subject, and then moving on to dominate yet another field. The Chandrasekhar Limit expresses the maximum mass a star of a particular composition can have before collapsing under its own weight; the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarf (electron degenerate) stars is around 1.4 solar masses, while the limit for neutron degenerate matter is slightly higher. If the star is over the limit, it can "tend .. towards a completely collapsed state", in modern terms a black hole. Chandra discovered the limit during a sea voyage from India to England in 1930. In a famous confrontation at the Royal Astronomical Society on 1935 Jan 11, Sir Arthur Eddington, the astronomical titan of his time, said 'I think there should be a law of Nature to prevent a star from behaving in this absurd way!' (Observatory LVIII, p 38). Chandra left Cambridge for Chicago, but lived to see his vindication.'
hea-www.harvard.edu
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Press Release: The 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics
KUNGL. VETENSKAPSAKADEMIEN
THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
19 October 1983
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics by one half to
Professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, University of Chicago, Chicago, USA, for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars,
and by the other half to
professor William A. Fowler, California, Institute of Technology, Pasadena, USA, for his theoretical and experimental studies of the nuclear reactions of importance in the formation of the chemical elements in the universe......
nobel.se
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Autobiography:
nobel.se
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Farewell
'..“Chandra was one of the great astrophysicists of our time,” said Hans Bethe, a fellow Nobel laureate and a professor of physics emeritus at Cornell. “He showed that white dwarf stars cannot grow beyond a certain mass–the same mass that triggers the explosion of supernovae, the most brilliant display in the sky. Chandra was also the greatest master of the English language that I know.”..
www-news.uchicago.edu
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Books available from Amazon written by or about Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
amazon.com
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