The Chandrasekhar limit
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The maximum mass of a white dwarf star is named after S. Chandrasekhar (1931). Wilhelm Anderson (1929) and Edmund Stoner (1930) had already published approximate limits; Chandrasekhar gave the exact theory.
Earlier elsewherePhysics & chemistry
Indian claim
Chandrasekhar discovered the white-dwarf mass limit, about 1.4 times the Sun's mass, and was opposed by Eddington before winning the 1983 Nobel Prize.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- Chandrasekhar's 1931 papers used a proper model of a star in equilibrium and gave the limit that is still used.
- He developed the full theory through the 1930s despite strong criticism from Arthur Eddington, and shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Commonly credited to
Wilhelm Anderson (1929) and Edmund Stoner (1930) first showed that relativity sets an upper mass for white dwarfs.
Evidence for the other claim
- Anderson (1929) first combined relativity with electron statistics to get a mass limit, though his method had flaws.
- Stoner (1930) calculated a limit assuming a star of uniform density, which gave a somewhat different value.
- Chandrasekhar built on Stoner's work, which he cited; Lev Landau reached a similar result independently in 1932.
What historians and scientists say
Anderson and Stoner found approximate limits first. Chandrasekhar gave the exact result and its meaning for stellar evolution, so the name honours the definitive work rather than the first hint.