University of Chicago Press Selected Papers V 6

This is the first of six volumes collecting significant papers of the distinguished astrophysicist and Nobel laureate S. Chandrasekhar. His work is notable for its breadth as well as for its brilliance; his practice has been to change his focus from time to time to pursue new areas of research. The result has been a prolific career full of discoveries and insights, some of which are only now being fully appreciated. Chandrasekhar has selected papers that trace the development of his ideas and that present aspects of his work not fully covered in the books he has periodically published to summarize his research in each area. From the Back Cover S. Chandrasekhar on black holes and gravitational waves: What a story! Forty years after his pioneer investigations, Chandra returned to the study of the dead stars. He had told us back in 1931 that massive stars could not die as ordinary objects, consisting of regular matter, could. Eddington would rebuff the idea as absurd; the scientific community would side mostly with Eddington; and, although the Schwarzschild solution was waiting around for its correct interpretation, the development of black holes would be delayed by a few decades. So, although all the ingredients were there and we did not have to wait too long, it was not until the sixties that we would incorporate black holes into our world view. About the Author Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995) received many awards in his career, including the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983, the National Medal of Science (U.S.), and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (London). He was the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Department of Physics, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago.