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S. Chandrasekhar.
19 October is the birth anniversary of the renowned astrophysicist Dr Subramanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995).
Chandrashekhar followed Sir CV Raman, who was his father’s brother, in achieving the Nobel Prize for Physics, in 1983.
Chandrasekhar earned his degree from Presidency College Madras at the young age of 18. In recognition of his genius he was awarded a scholarship to do research in the Cambridge University. He was awarded PhD at age 22.
When he was only 19, he updated classical physics prevalent till then, incorporating the new relativistic physics of Albert Einstein. The work would ultimately lead to his Nobel Prize.
Chandrashekhar postulated that stars having a mass of 1.4 times that of the Sun would not die. The number 1.4 that predicted the formation of white dwarfs is now known as the Chandrasekhar limit.
His theories led to the discovery of neutron stars or Black Holes.
An irony is that, in the beginning, the scientific community had scorned his ideas.
– Joy Kallivayalil.
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