Used with
permission of Maiken Naylor, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA,
http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/sel/exhibits/stamps
Subramanian Chandrasekhar (1910-1995) shared the 1983 Nobel prize for physics for his theoretical studies of the physical processes relating to the structure and evolution of the stars, particularly white dwarfs, stars at the evolutionary end of stellar d evelopment. Chandrasekhar calculated that white dwarfs cannot have a mass greater than 1.4 solar masses without collapsing into an even denser state, a neutron star. The expression for this critical mass is shown on the stamp at left.