Somehow in my younger days, in my haste to get out into the ‘real world’, I ended up spending five years in graduate school. Part of that time, in the summers, I studied and conducted research at the University of Chicago where I helped use laser systems to measure properties of molecules found in planetary atmospheres and the interstellar medium.
Chicago is one of the world’s great universities. Nearly 100 of its students and professors have won Nobel Prizes. But it’s not a particularly big place, so a chance sighting of a famous professor is not unusual. Still, I stopped in my tracks during my first week on campus when, on the way back to the lab from lunch, I passed on the sidewalk an older, slight man of Indian descent with thinning grey hair and alert eyes wearing a crisp white shirt and tie. I instantly recognized him as Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, more commonly known as Chandra, the discoverer of the Chandrasekhar Limit, winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics, and one of the most revered astrophysicists in the world [Read more…] about Chandra’s Limit
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