Today
(Oct. 19) is the 108th birthday of Subramanyan Chandrasekhar about
whom I have read the past year or two. I was going to write “S.
Chandrasekhar: a Renaissance man in science” in my blog as this
astrophysicist and mathematician is the best example, the most
intellectual of intellectuals. Only his close friends and colleagues
called him Chandra. I would flatter myself presuming he has allowed
me to call him Chandra.
I
have decided to delay writing the post until I finish reading two
books about him (one is his biography, the other is about a famous
debate in science that involved him.) and one ebook I just bought
from Amazon after I found out it is not available at Carnegie
Library. The book is called Truth and Beauty: Aesthetics
and Motivations in Science (I kept saying reading in
science and humanity is to pursue truth and beauty), a collection of
his seven lectures.
I
was a bit disappointed when I discovered the lecture of “Shakespeare,
Newton and Beethoven” is part of the 7 lectures in the book, that
means my $17 or $18 just bought 6 lectures, instead of 7, as that
lecture is readily available free online. Almost every book I bought
the past year or two are all ebooks, I did this with mixed emotions,
it is not the money issue, as the ebooks are usually a few dollars
less expensive only.
Instead
I will just say “a few words” to say Happy Birthday to You, Chandra!”
After
reading the “Shakespeare, Newton and Beethoven” (talking about
different creative pattern in art and in science) drove me to pursue
him further, the more I read about him, the more I hold him in awe. He
said that he “received the same thrill from a Michelangelo
sculpture as from a beautiful mathematical relationship.”
An
intellectual family of distinction
Chandrasekhar
is from an intellectual family of distinction. His uncle, Sir
Chandrasekhar Venkata Raman was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in
1930. Chandra wrote, “my mother was a woman of high intellectual
attainments. She translated into Tamil, for example, Henrik Ibsen’s
A Doll House.” His grandfather was a university mathematics
professor.
In
his first series of “現代俳句
&
變奏,
系列
1”
in June 2017, my friend, Khang-Loon wrote,
「最近好嗎？都想些什麼？」.
[How are you doing of late? What are you all thinking about?]
Black
Hole, Dark Matter, Supernova, . . .
到遠方自成一個宇宙
[forming
a universe of its own far away.]
The
beauty of the mathematical theory of black holes
 |
| (This is how Chandrasekhar begins his Nobel Lecture) |
Khang-Loon
seemed to know what I was reading, and reading Black Holes, one
cannot escape B. Chandrasekhar, whose Nobel Lecture in 1983 is all
complex math from the beginning to the end. I wish I could read his
book of the Mathematical Theory of Black Holes. The Lecture
ends with,
the
mathematical theory of black holes is a subject of immense
complexity; but it’s study has convinced me of the basic truth of
the ancient mottoes, and
The
simple is the seal of the true
and
Beauty
is the splendor of truth.
A
genius and an Newton Expert
If
Genius is defined as having enormous intellect, then Chandrasekhar is
one. The complex math that leads to the now known as Chandrasekhar
Limit (for which he was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics 53 years
later) was done during his 3-week voyage from India to England,
heading to Cambridge University (Trinity College; Newton's college.
Chandra is an expert on Isaac Newton. He translated the Principia
into the language of modern mathematics, he wrote a book of “Newton's
Principia for the Common Reader”) in 1930. He was then a
19-year-old young man, just graduating from Presidency College at
Madras.
Chandra
studied with the giants in science and in the three “holy”
institutes where the quantum mechanics was born and flourished
He
studied and researched under Ralph Fowler at Trinity College. In
1931 Max Born (who is the maternal grandfather of Olivia John Newton)
invited Chandrasekhar to study at Gottingen Institute. At the advice
of Paul Dirac, he spent the last year of graduate studies at the
Institute for Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen, where he met Bohr.
So he actually studied at the three “holy” institutes where the
quantum mechanics was born and flourished.
Did
the racial discrimination drive Chandra from England to America?
Chandrasekhar
moved to the United States (University of Chicago) in 1937. I have
read from many sources that racial discrimination was what drove him
away from England. This involves Sir Arthur Eddington who ridiculed
him at a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. Chandrasekhar
praised the US saying, “I have one advantage here in the United
States. I have enormous freedom. I can do what I want. Nobody bothers
me”. This
is one of the main reasons why I delayed the writing about him. I
need to get to the bottom of the truth.
Devotion
to his student is legendary
Legend
had it that while working at Yerkes Observatory (in Wisconsin,
affiliated with University of Chicago), he drove 75 miles one way
every weekend to teach a course with only two students: Tsung-Dao Lee
(李政道）and
Chen-Ning Yang (楊振寧）who
got Nobel Prize in 1957, Chandrasekhar had to wait another 26 years
for his glory. In his obituary at New York Times, I read that NY
Times called Chen-Ning Yang who said the story of driving was true,
but “he thought there were others in the course.” (Another small
example that NY Times is more trustful.) Carl
Sagan was also his student, who described his interaction with
students that “frivolous questions” from unprepared students were
“dealt with in the manner of a summary execution”, while
questions of merit “were given serious attention and response.”
During WWII he worked in Maryland on ballistics for the war effort, and The NY Times obituary, along with many other sources, reported he turned down Oppenheimer’s invitation to join those at Los Alamos working on Manhattan Project. But I also read different version of the story saying his failure to participate is due to security clearance delay. Another reason that I have to read more to get to the truth.
A
master in English language and the breadth and depth of the knowledge
in literature and arts
His
Nobel Lecture is beyond us, but we can appreciate his Nobel Banquet
speech which is mainly composed of two relatively lengthy quotes: One
from Virginia Woolf’s (about whom I have read for many years; there is a category of "Virginia Woolf" in this blog.) The
Waves (of
many novels she wrote, she liked this one the most.) Chandrasekhar
once compared the prose of his favorite novelist, Virginia
Woolf, to “an elegant mathematical formula.”
He
quoted Ravindranath Tagore’s poem and said, “I learnt the poem
when I was a boy of twelve some sixty and more years ago; and the
following lines have remained with me ever since:
Where
the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where
knowledge is free;
Where
words come out from the depth of truth;
Where
tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection;
Where
the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary
desert sand of dead habit;
Into
that haven of freedom, Let me awake.
 |
| Dr Greenlee and I: The poster boys of American Lung Association |
Hans
Bethe, a fellow Nobel laureate, the one I greatly admire as a
scientist as well as a person (who died the same day as our neighbor,
Dr. Paul Greenlee, a Mayo Clinic-trained surgeon, in 2005), had high
praise of Chandra, “one of the great astrophysicist of our time.
He was also the greatest master of the English language that I know.”
His deep and broad knowledge of literature and arts greatly match
his enormous scientific achievements.
Chandra
gave a lecture of “The Series Paintings of Claude Monet and the
Landscape of General Relativity” at Presidency College, Madras, in
1992, three years before his passing. It took place in the room
where he had courted his wife, Lalitha, sitting at his side, more
than sixty years earlier.
(Photo is Lalitha and Chandra in Madras in 1936, shortly after their wedding.)
