Fluid Flows to Black Holes D.J. Saika and V. Trimble, eds. World Scientific 2011 299 pages hardcover ISBN 9789814374767 biography / essay any level Dr. Manuel Vogel, TU Darmstadt and GSI Darmstadt,
[email protected] The subtitle of this book is a very precise description of its form and content: 'A Tribute to S. Chandrasekhar on His Birth Centenary'. The editors, D.J. Saika and V. Trimble, have put together contributions by colleagues and friends of the famous astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar as well as contributions by other experts related to his work. Chandrasekhar was born in India in 1910 and died in the United States in 1995. He was a nephew of the famous physicist C.V. Raman and became one of the most outstanding persons in astrophysics. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983 'for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars'. The early chapters of the book illustrate the life and work of Chandrasekhar and give details about the person and the enormous impact his research made to numerous fields in astrophysics. They represent a biographical portrait, an account of his role in science, but also give a personal reminiscence. The further chapters are reviews by leading experts in areas which Chandrasekhar pioneered. These articles have also appeared in the Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of India. The book as a whole is related to a symposium held at the University of Chicago in October 2010, the 'Chandrasekhar Centennial Symposium'. Chandrasekhar had worked at the University of Chicago from 1937 on after receiving his PhD and a fellowship at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. In full detail, the book contains the following contributions: 'Chandra: A biographical portrait' by Kameshwar C. Wali, 'Chandrasekhar’s role in 20th-century science' by Freeman Dyson, 'Chandrasekhar and the legacy of Ramanujan' by G. Srinivasan, 'Chandra’s influence on Indian astronomy' by Jayant V. Narlikar, 'Chandrasekhar and the history of astronomy' by Virginia Trimble, 'Compact stars and the evolution of binary systems' by E. P. J. van den Heuvel, 'Stability of relativistic stars' by John L. Friedman and Nikolaos Stergioulas, 'Key problems in black hole physics today' by Pankaj S. Joshi, 'Problems of collisional stellar dynamics' by D. C. Heggie, 'Chandrasekhar and modern stellar dynamics' by N. W. Evans, 'Monte Carlo radiative transfer' by Barbara A. Whitney, 'Astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics' by James M. Stone, 'The formation and evolution of massive black hole seeds in the early Universe' by Priyamvada Natarajan, 'Early Universe with CMB polarization' by Tarun Souradeep, 'Gravitational wave astronomy - astronomy of the 21st century' by S. V. Dhurandhar, 'Gravitational waves from perturbed stars' by V. Ferrari, 'The Chandra X-ray observatory' by Gordon P. Garmire and 'Some memories of Chandra' by Robert M. Wald. The quality of the print, the paper and the making of the book are excellent. As a whole, it is indeed a fine tribute to Chandrasekhar as a man and scientist and accessible to both readers interested in the person or his impact to astrophysics given in a modern retrospective.
