Word: chandrasekhar
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...only woman to receive an honorary degree is Barbara McClintock, a geneticist known for her experiments with cell structure. Harvard also honored another scientist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, an astrophysicist...
Considered by many as the greatest living mathematical astronomer, Chandrasekhar developed the theory of the dwarf star that explains the final stages of stellar evolution. Born in Lahore, India, in 1910, he became a U.S. citizen in 1953. His other research has included work in the dynamics of stellar systems, theory of stellar atmospheres, radiative transfer, hydrodynamics and hydromagnetic relativity. From 1952 to 1971, he acted as managing editor of Astrophysical Journal. Chandrasekhar received the 1966 National Medal of Science for his contribution to the study of cosmic dynamics. His books include Principles of Stellar Dynamics (1942) and Radioactive Transfer...
...University of Chicago's noted Indian-born astrophysicist, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, when hospitalized for heart surgery, found to his delight that all his doctors and nurses seemed to want to talk about was black holes. The White House also recognizes the gravity of black holes. Upon reading a news article about them one morning, President Carter promptly asked his science adviser, Frank Press, for his thoughts. Press, whose son William happened to have done research on black holes, sheepishly confessed ignorance, explaining that he could not get through the paper so early...
Preoccupying himself with this problem while traveling by ship from India to England to take up studies at Cambridge in the early 1930s, the young Chandrasekhar came to an astonishing conclusion. His calculations showed that if a star is larger than 1.4 times the mass of the sun when it begins its collapse, it will compress to a state even more dense than that of a white dwarf. How far could the star collapse? In one of the great understatements of modern science, Chandrasekhar would only say: "One is left speculating on other possibilities...
...Y.M.C.A. Method. Chandrasekhar agrees with critics that India's birth control efforts have been snarled by red tape and hurt by wishful thinking, such as his spinster predecessor's plea for brahmacharya (monklike abstinence). Nor does he place his hopes on any single method to defuse India's population time bomb. While other experts have alternatively argued for the intrauterine loop, sterilization or the pill, Chandrasekhar recognizes that none alone can provide the answer; popular fears of the loop and surgery bear him out. Instead, he vigorously favors a "cafeteria approach," giving Indians the widest choice...