A Horrific Humiliation And Sense Of Betrayal | Eddington And Chandrasekhar

[1] Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Birth: [28 December 1882] Kendal, Westmorland, England, United Kingdom

Death: [22 November 1944] (aged 61) Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, United Kingdom

Known for:

• Eddington approximation
• Eddington experiment
• Eddington limit
• Eddington number
• Eddington valve
• Eddington–Dirac number
• Eddington–Finkelstein coordinates

[2] Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Birth: [19 October 1910] Lahore, Punjab, British India (present-day Punjab, Pakistan)

Death: [21 August 1995] (aged 84) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Known for:

• Chandrasekhar limit
• Chandrasekhar number
• Chandrasekhar friction
• Chandrasekhar–Kendall function
• Chandrasekhar's H-function
• Emden–Chandrasekhar equation
• Chandrasekhar–Page equations
• Chandrasekhar tensor
• Chandrasekhar virial equations
• Batchelor–Chandrasekhar equation
• Sch?nberg–Chandrasekhar limit
• Chandrasekhar's white dwarf equation
• Chandrasekhar polarization
• Chandrasekhar's X- and Y-function

This story dates back to 1930s when India was ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. Just a few years ago, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to the first Asian Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman

for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him. In this uncertain time when India was suffering under colonial rule of the British Raj, there was one Lahore-born, Presidency College-educated student who was dreaming of bringing the second Nobel Prize to his country and he was none other than Nephew of the Indian physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

Applied mathematician and astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar completed his university education at Presidency College [Madras] graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and to pursue his Master's Chandra went to Britain as he was awarded a Government of India scholarship to study at Cambridge as a member of Trinity College.

While on the voyage to Cambridge in 1930, Chandra worked on one of his most significant discoveries called Chandrasekhar's limit. He applied Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity to the processes inside a star. His calculations suggested that once a stellar star had burned up all its energy (exhibiting a corresponding mass m given by its energy E divided by the speed of light squared) it would collapse to a point of infinite density where gravity is so strong that nothing—no particles or even electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from it.

Since he was born in an open minded Tamil Iyer family, to Sita Balakrishnan (1891–1931) and Chandrasekhara Subrahmanya Ayyar (1885–1960) who was stationed in Lahore as Deputy Auditor General of the Northwestern Railways at the time of Chandrasekhar's birth, He assumed the community there would welcome him and his contribution to the structure and evolution of stars with open arms. But the reality was far from what he had thought ? his theories were overlooked because of his race. The scientific community in Britain ignored him and his work on the white dwarfs and black holes as a result of which he went into a deep mood disorder. He had lost all feeling of trust.

Then came an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician "Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington". For those who don't know about Eddington, he was the

• Philosopher of science
• Populariser of science
• One who conducted an expedition to observe the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919 that provided one of the earliest confirmations of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, and he became known for his popular expositions and interpretations of the theory.

The legendary astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington started meeting Chandra frequently. Chandra and Eddington were almost in daily contact about their research. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar felt motivated that a man of Eddinton's reputation is helping him out. Arthur Eddington was also working on the similar subject and he encouraged Chandrasekhar to pursue the detailed calculations and produce his results at the Royal Astronomical Society meeting on 11 January 1935, in England to which Chandrasekhar agreed.

But, on January 10, he came to know that Eddington too had a lecture after him that too on the same topic. He was puzzled, but thought no more about it. On the day of the conference, all the leading figures in astrophysics were at the Royal Astronomical Society. Chandra delivered his paper, showing a graph that made it transparently clear that the maximum mass at which a star near the end of its life cycle can become a white dwarf and above which the star will collapse to form a neutron star or black hole: a stellar mass equal to about 1.4 solar masses. Triumphantly he sat down, assuming that Eddington would support his conclusions. But to his horror, Eddington ? a supercilious man – claimed that there was no such thing as Chandra's relativistic degeneracy; arguing that Chandra's theory was mere mathematical game-playing ? with no basis in reality, he used the full force of his famed oratorical skills to demolish the young researcher's calculations and theory. Eddington's arguments were unfounded and highly dubious; but the weight of his reputation was such that no one dared to disagree with him. Chandra was not even given the opportunity to reply to this confrontation. The next speaker was called.

This controversy rumbled and preoccupied scientific journals for several years. Chandra and Eddington came across each other in many conferences and it was Sir Arthur Eddington, who was always favored and at a talk at Harvard, Eddington termed Chandra's notions a "stellar buffoonery".

But years later, in one meeting it was proved that it was Chandrasekhar’s calculations that were correct. On that day, they both had a brief meeting. "I am sorry if I hurt you," Eddington said to Chandra. Chandra asked whether he had changed his mind. "No," Eddington responded. "What are you sorry about then?" Chandra replied and brusquely walked away.

Chandrasekhar was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "... theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars". On several occasions he admitted that Eddington's behavior was indeed racially motivated.