The stellar scientist and his quest for the stars

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was born in 1910 in Lahore, which at the time was in British India. His father was a government officer while his mother was a litterateur. They home-schooled him with tutors until the age of 12.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was known to the world as Chandra, which literally means ‘luminous’ in Sanskrit. He was true to his name and was one of the 20th century’s most prominent astrophysicists, combining physics and astronomy. He also had an abiding interest in literature, and from a philosophic perspective, his life represents the Shakespearean dictum that “Men at some times are masters of their fates.” His contributions to the development of science spanned astrophysics, physics, and applied mathematics. In 1983, Chandra received the Nobel Prize in Physics (with the nuclear astrophysicist W A Fowler) for his work on the physical processes involved in the structure and evolution of stars.

Chandrasekhar was born in 1910 in Lahore, which at the time was in British India. His father was a government officer while his mother was a litterateur. They home-schooled him with tutors until the age of 12. He attended Hindu High School in Madras, where he graduated in 1925 at the age of 15, and then earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Madras Presidency College. His academic excellence won him a Government of India scholarship to pursue graduate studies at Cambridge University in England, receiving his PhD from Cambridge in 1933. Chandrasekhar married his collegemate Lalitha Doraiswamy in 1936; a marriage that was to span over 50 years. In 1937, Chandrasekhar joined the faculty of the University of Chicago, where he remained until his passing in 1995.

He is best known for his celebrated discovery of what is now called the ‘Chandrasekhar Limit’. Chandra proved that there was an upper limit to the mass of a white dwarf. This limit showed that stars more massive than the Sun would explode or form blackholes as they died. The formulation of the Chandrasekhar Limit led to the discovery of neutron stars and blackholes and plays a crucial role in understanding stellar evolution. He also developed theories on stars, blackholes, the illumination of the sunlit sky, and star mass. Chandra’s research was phenomenal, and every monograph or book he published has become a classic. No serious student of these fields can ignore his work.

What set him apart was that he was concerned not merely with a single problem but was driven by a desire to acquire a perspective on an entire subject. He was never concerned with the relative importance or unimportance of the subjects he worked on. And even less whether his work was going to bring him laurels and recognition. Put in his own words: “… my scientific work has followed a certain pattern motivated, principally, by quest after perspectives…and…the urge to present my point of view ab initio, in coherent account with order, form, and structure”. Once he finished a particular subject, he was ready to start on a fresh one. The essence of Chandra’s scientific life was aimed at attaining a complete understanding of an area, grasping and internalising it. He couldn’t care one bit about the establishment. Everything he did was out of being curious, and he did it for one reason and one reason only -- it gave him serenity and inner peace.

There is no better way to understand the man than to read Chandrasekhar in his own words. Of the 10 books he wrote, the standout classic -- a must read -- is Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics and Motivations in Science. Published in 1987, it comprises seven brilliant lectures given by Chandrasekhar during his scientific career spanning over 50 years -- the first, titled The Scientist delivered in 1946; and the seventh titled The Aesthetic Base of the General Theory of Relativity, delivered in 1986. Interspersed between these two lectures are other delightful subjects like Shakespeare, Newton, and Beethoven, or patterns of creativity and Beauty and the Quest for Beauty in Science. It is a joy to read, and shows Chandra’s felicity with words. Each of the lectures bear the hallmark of what epitomised his life’s work: precision, thoroughness, lucidity. His was a mind that sought and found beauty and truth. Little wonder that Chandrasekhar concluded his Nobel Prize lecture in the following words: “The mathematical theory of blackholes is a subject of immense complexity; but its study has convinced me of the basic truth of the ancient mottoes -- The simple is the seal of the true, and beauty is the splendour of truth.” Befitting his life’s work, Chandra was an atheist.

Read this splendid book. Even if none of us can hope to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, as Chandra did, for a comparable vision of nature and of the universe around us; there is nothing mean or lowly in standing in the valley below and awaiting the sun to rise over the Kanchenjunga.