November 15, 2012
Departments of Astronomy & Physics
Yale University
BASS Building, Room 305
Science Hill
New Haven, CT
Abstract:
In 1930 a nineteen-year-old Indian graduate student, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, came up with the first mathematical proof of black holes. But five years later, when he presented his findings at the Royal Astronomical Society in London, he found himself pitted against the greatest astrophysicist of the day, Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, who scathingly dismissed both Chandra and his theory. It was a battle of personalities, generations, ideas and also of cultures which was to have a devastating impact on the development of astrophysics for years to come. Who were the two men, what were the ideas that caused such uproar, and how was the conflict finally resolved? I will discuss all this and also consider what this story has to tell us about what science is, how it works, and where it can go wrong.