A Scientific Autobiography: S. CHANDRASEKHAR 7686 tp.indd 1 12/20/10 3:35 PM This page intentionally left blank A Scientific Autobiography: S. CHANDRASEKHAR Edited by Kameshwar C. Wali Syracuse University, USA World Scientific NEW JERSEY • LONDON • SINGAPORE • BEIJING • SHANGHAI • HONG KONG • TAIPEI • CHENNAI 7686 tp.indd 2 12/20/10 3:35 PM Published by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224 USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601 UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover credit: Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar in his office at the University of Chicago, standing beside a picture of Sir Isaac Newton placed on the volumes of the Principia Mathematica, March 1991. Photograph courtesy of Spenta Wadia. Anecdote connected with this photo is at http://arXiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/9705001. A SCIENTIFIC AUTOBIOGRAPHY: S. CHANDRASEKHAR Copyright © 2010 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher. For photocopying of material in this volume, please pay a copying fee through the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. In this case permission to photocopy is not required from the publisher. ISBN-13 978-981-4299-57-2 ISBN-10 981-4299-57-X ISBN-13 978-981-4299-58-9 (pbk) ISBN-10 981-4299-58-8 (pbk) Printed in Singapore. Lakshmi - A Scientific Autobiography - Chandrasekhar.pmd1 12/20/2010, 5:10 PM January 5, 2011 11:30 Reprint volume: A Scientific Autobiography ... scientificbio DEDICATION HØI Lalitha Chandrasekhar v January 5, 2011 11:30 Reprint volume: A Scientific Autobiography ... scientificbio This page intentionally left blank January 5, 2011 11:30 Reprint volume: A Scientific Autobiography ... scientificbio FOREWORD HØI In late 1980’s, while I was working with Chandra on his biography, he mentioned a journal he kept of his scientific activities. One day he handed me a copy of what he had at the time. It was supposed to be confidential, and after his death, if his wife Lalitha and I thought it of interest and worthwhile, he would like to see it published. A brief glance at it evoked wonder and admiration. Chandra led a life of supreme and almost unparalleled effort in unraveling the laws of nature encoded in mathematics. The year 2010 marks Chandra’s birth centennial (October 19, 1910) and seems the perfect time to bring to light this unique document, A Scientific Autobiography. The journal gives a rare and personal insight into the joys and struggles of a brilliant scientist at work. For example, on his work on Radiative Transfer with which this journal begins, Chandra said, “My research on radiative trans- fer gave me the most satisfaction. I worked on it for five years, and the subject, I felt, developed on its own initiative and momentum. Problems arose one by one, each more complex and difficult than the previous one, and they were solved. The whole subject attained ele- gance and a beauty which I do not find to the same degree in any of vii January 5, 2011 11:30 Reprint volume: A Scientific Autobiography ... scientificbio viii A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar my other work. And when I finally wrote the book, Radiative Trans- fer, I left the area entirely. Although I could think of several problems, I did not want to spoil the coherence and beauty of the subject [with further additions]. Furthermore, as the subject had developed, I also had developed. It gave me for the first time a degree of self-assurance and confidence in my scientific work because here was a situation where I was not looking for problems. The subject, not easy by any standards, seemed to evolve on its own.”a It is this kind of insight that illuminates the contextual circumstances surrounding his body of work and gives it a depth of purpose we could not know otherwise. As revealed in this scientific autobiography, and as Chandra himself noted in the autobiographical account published with his Nobel Lecture: “After the early preparatory years, my scientific work has followed a certain pattern motivated, principally, by a quest after perspectives. In practice, this quest has consisted in my choos- ing (after some trials and tribulations) a certain area which appears amenable to cultivation and compatible with my taste, ability, and temperament. And when after some years of study, I feel that I have accumulated a sufficient body of knowledge and achieved a view of my own, I have the urge to present my point of view ab initio, in a coherent account with order, form, and structure.” This autobiography is a testimony to his having carried out his quest to its perfection. The inner workings described in this doc- ument go beyond the vast landscape of physics, astrophysics and applied mathematics. Chandra’s published papers and monographs evoke a feeling of respect and wonder. While to a casual student it may seem intimidating and forbidding, for the serious-minded, how- ever, they leave an indelible impression of their endearing value in spite of the continual progress in the respective fields. They con- vince one of the innate values of science — the continuity, the inter- dependence, and the necessity of combining original research with scholarship. As we read, we find that with the perspective gained in one area to his satisfaction, he leaves that area entirely and pro- aChandra; A Biography of S. Chandrasekhar, University of Chicago Press, 1991, p. 190. January 5, 2011 11:30 Reprint volume: A Scientific Autobiography ... scientificbio Foreword ix ceeds to another with a complete sense of detachment, ready to start afresh in a new area. If it was necessary, he would attend classes, take notes, and studied as if he were once again a student. Or he would teach a course, and perhaps would give a series of lectures on the topic he wanted to learn. On the drop of a hat, he would fly to Oxford, England to have a discussion with Roger Penrose, or to Crete and Rome to work with his young collaborators, Basilis Xanthopoulos and Valeria Ferrari. In addition, this autobio- graphical journal reveals Chandra’s human side, the man behind the legend — his intense association with his students and associates and his ability to inspire in others hard work and enthusiasm. Chandra’s extraordinary personality was characterized by an intensity and fervor for completeness, elegance, and above every- thing else, gaining a personal aesthetic perspective. It extended beyond his technical scientific publications to his semipopular lec- tures and essays. This is best illustrated, as he tells us in this auto- biography, how he was led to writing the essay, The Series Paintings of Claude Monet and the Landscape of General Relativity, in which he speaks about the similarity of Monet’s motivations in painting his “Series Paintings”b and his own motivations in the series of papers on black holes, colliding waves and scattering of gravitational radia- tion. In Monet’s paintings, the same scene is depicted over and over again under different natural illumination and seasonal variations. The valley, the trees and the fields, and the haystacks are the same. Superficially, they may appear boring and repetitive. However, the different paintings radiate totally different aesthetic content. When seen as a group, a viewer can obtain a deeply convincing sense of the continuous nature of the experience in contrast to the shift- ing nature of what one observes. In a similar fashion, the same set of static symbols, which form the landscape of General Relativity, manifest in different roles in equations, unifying the description of vastly different physical phenomena, making the General Relativity as sometimes described as the one of the most “beautiful” theories. bChandra is referring to: (1) Haystacks (or Grainstacks), (2) Poplars, (3) Early morning on the Seine. January 5, 2011 11:30 Reprint volume: A Scientific Autobiography ... scientificbio x A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar In concluding that essay, Chandra states he does not know if there has been any scientist who could have said what Monet did on one occasion I would like to paint the way a bird sings. But we do know of a scientist who spoke like a poet on one occasion The pursuit of science has often been compared to the scaling of mountains, high and not so high. But who amongst us can hope, even in imagination, to scale the Everest and reach its summit when the sky is blue and the air is still, and in the stillness of the air survey the entire Himalayan range in the dazzling white of the snow stretching to infinity? None of us can hope for a comparable vision of Nature and the universe around us, but there is nothing mean or lowly in standing below the valley below and waiting for the sun to rise over Kanchenjunga. With such writings, often filled with parables, quotes from mod- ern and ancient literature, with his Ryerson Lecture, Shakespeare, Newton and Beethoven and his book, Truth and Beauty, Chandra bridged the gap between what C. P. Snow calls the two cultures — the culture of sciences and of the humanities. This scientific biogra- phy, mainly concerned with an intense effort to understand Nature in the language of mathematics, may superficially seem too specialized and forbidding.