S. Chandrasekhar
Scientist and Patriot

Dr. Chandrasekhar was an astrophysicist --a long word meaning a scientist who tries to figure out exactly what is going on out there in space; one who tries to know the chemistry, physics and math of objects and forces distant in the universe. Oftentimes the way such huge objects behave is different from how things behave on earth.
Chandra, as he was known to friends and co-workers, was born in the city of Lahore (then in India). There in his teens he wrote a highly theoretical paper and sent it to an astronomical journal at the University of Chicago. It was rejected (perhaps because he was Indian?). Such a great astronomer as Arthur Eddington ridiculed the findings in that paper. Chandra protested that his conclusions were correct. And what do you think happened? Later on he becamed the Editor of that very same magazine!

His upbringing was strict. His father, before leaving for work in the morning, taught him English and math, his mother taught him the Tamil language. So Chandra had "home education" until he was admitted to college. During his home schooling he always felt sad that his sisters were not considered equal and given the same education. The college was in Madras, and he was only fifteen. In college Chandra played tennis, went out for track and field, and the debate team.
The Indian Science Congress gave him a big ovation when he was presented to them at the age of eighteen. This was the beginning of his recognition as a genius.
Then came the big chance: the Indian Government awarded Chandra a scholarship to study at Cambridge University in England. Over the disapproval of his conservative family, he left for England in 1930.

What was all the excitement about? What had he discovered? A very new idea: that stars, as they grow old, do not all become "white dwarfs": some, larger than a certain mass (about three times the size of our sun) continue to collapse, producing new states of superdense matter. It was "scientific heresy" at the time, but it led to many new discoveries.

At Cambridge he experienced very real racial prejudice and hostility. It was not a happy time. Chandra would take walks of 18-20 miles to neighboring villages, to relieve his mind. So in 1935, when he was invited to give lectures at Harvard, he moved to the land which he would call home thereafter. He was happy at Harvard. But his reputation spread, and soon the University of Chicago made him an offer he could not turn down, and it was there, and at the Yerkes Observatory, that Chandra finally found his place. Even there, he ran into prejudice. This was long before the civil rights movement, and there were restaurants which would not serve him meals and hotels which would not rent rooms, to "the black man."
Yet this was the man who in 1983 won the Nobel Prize in Physics. India too had been late in recognizing its distinguished son. It was 1968 before he received the Padma Bhushan award, and was recognized as an important link between India and the West.

This scientist felt that he was international --that he belonged to the whole of humanity. No one could make him say, "My country, right or wrong." He always said, "My first loyalty is to science."

In his life of prolific work and study, Chandrasekhar produced a large number of papers and a master book on his early research. Someone estimated that if all his papers and notes etc. were put end to end they would reach from earth to the moon! He wrote another book on black holes.
He married (by their own choice) another scientist, Lalitha Doraiswamy, who worked and taught in physics, and who had been a good friend and neighbor in his youth.

You may wonder what Chandra did for a hobby --how he used to employ his spare time. He tells us, "I read all the plays of Henrik Ibsen and all of Shakespeare's, too."