Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Astrophysicist.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, (October 19, 1910 – August 21, 1995), was an Indian-American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. The Chandrasekhar limit is named after him. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.

Chandrasekhar in distinct periods worked in various areas including stellar structure, theory of white dwarfs, stellar dynamics, theory of radiative transfer, quantum theory of the negative ion of Hydrogen, hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic stability, equilibrium and the stability of ellipsoidal figures of equilibrium, general relativity. mathematical theory of black holes and theory of colliding gravitational waves.

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1.) "I am not religious in any sense; in fact, I consider myself an atheist. Nonetheless, because the Hindu religion, despite its outward trappings, is an essentially rational way of life, it's easy to live with it. It's so tolerant." - Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Chandra: A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar, page 304.