Subramanium Chandrasekar - Another Legend but forgotten scientist in Indian Astrophysics

With “Mangalyaan” leaving the Earth orbit and jumping into Helio-centric orbit, ISRO proved its space technology was robust and also had a legacy of rich history behind it. Back 2500 years ago, an Indian mathematician namely “Aryabhatta” discovered Helio-centric nature of our solar system. He wrote a book namely “Aryabhattium” in which he extensively explained about the Earth rotation, formation of solar,lunar eclipses.  By calculating distance between sun and earth, he proposed that the earth revolves around sun in 354 Days, which is almost so accurate for the period which has neither  any communication  equipments nor any optical instruments. Later the scientists who followed the footsteps of “Aryabhatta” were Bramagupta, Baskara, Madhava. In 19^th Century another Indian scientist made an breakthrough discovery in Stellar physics, His legacy was still unnoticed among the Indian public. He is none other than “Subramanium Chandrasekaran”.His journey of invention, its own complications with his colleagues are discussed below in this article

When Galileo invented the telescope in 16^th Century, bubble of enthusiasm developed among the physics researchers who were hunting for the mysteries behind the stars in the night sky. Until before this invention, everybody believed that the sky is unchanging with flood of stars. This invention paved the way for opening of a new branch in physics namely “Astro physics . Before the end of 19^th Century Jupiter,Saturn,Uranus,Neptune, one by one all planets were discovered in the solar system. With Einistein’s “Thoery of Relativity” arrived in the beginning of 20th century, the physics saw something new and important aspects of space science. But it was still confined to time travel in space, speed of light, nothing more in the stellar perspective. Astro Scientists were restless to find out the mechanism behind the birth and death of stars in the universe.At this crucial juncture of space thirst, an Indian scientist namely “Subramaniyam Chandrasekaran”  made an important invention, regarding the degeneration of  a star known as “Chandrasekhar Limit”.

Born in Lahore,British India (circa 1910) from the Tamil Brahmin family, he moved along with his parents to Chennai during childhood. With family roots(Nobel laureate Sir CV Raman is his uncle) connected through physics researchers, chandrasekar had huge curiosity in physics studies. In 1930,After completing under graduation in physics from presidency college Chennai, Government of India recommended him to do post graduation and research in University of Cambridge. Working under another great scientist and Professor R.H Fowler, Chandra(he was profoundly called like that) did a quality research and presented many papers in topic related to degeneration of stars and physics behind it.

After 5 long years  of quality research, Chandra invented most famous(and ultimately correct) “Chandrasekhar Limit”. That same year when he tried to explain this concept in one of famous conferences, he was encountered infamous by another great scientist “Sir Arthur Eddington”.

Sir Arthur Eddington, most popular among physicist fraternity in early 19^th century, famed for  proving  one of the concepts of “Thoery of relativity”. Einistein in his theory of relativity said that “Light bends due to the gravity”. Eddington went to west coast of Africa in 1919 and photographed the total solar eclipse happened that year. With this phenomenon, he explained the concept of light bending owing to gravity, in accordance of theory of relativity. This invention led him as crown among astrophysicist community. He deposed the concept of “Chandrasekhar limit”, saying its impracticable. Fearing for the popularity of Eddington, physics fraternity neglected the Chandra’s invention. With his invention in sleep state for another few years, finally the scientist community accepted the correct version after death of Eddington”

One of Eddington's photographs of the total solar eclipse of 29 May 1919, presented in his 1920 paper announcing its success, confirming Einstein's theory that light "bends"

Scientists who came later, criticized Eddington and his supporters. Arthur I. Miller person who wrote biography of Chandra describes the betrayal by science community and Eddington behavior as below

“Chandra's discovery might well have transformed and accelerated developments in both physics and astrophysics in the 1930s. Instead, Eddington's heavy-handed intervention lent weighty support to the conservative community astrophysicists, who steadfastly refused even to consider the idea that stars might collapse to nothing. As a result, Chandra's work was almost forgotten”

Legacy

With his invention and research on structure and evolution of stars, he was awarded “Nobel Prize in Physics” in 1983.

·         In 1999, NASA named the third of its four "Great Observatories" after Chandrasekhar.

·         The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999.

·         The Chandrasekhar number, an important dimensionless number of magneto hydrodynamics, is named after him.

·         The asteroid 1958 Chandra is also named after Chandrasekhar. American astronomer Carl Sagan, who studied Mathematics under Chandrasekhar, at the University of Chicago, praised him in the book The Demon-Haunted World: "I discovered what true mathematical elegance is from Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar."

Sad truth is, this great scientist was never recognized properly in his native country “India”. On Oct 19 2013,(his birth date) Indian media channels  showed no news of him but were  busy in telecasting another physics scientist Bose who was involved in research with boson few decades back.

Sources: Wikipedia, Other Science magazines