October 19, 2010 will be the 100th anniversary of the birth of S. Chandrasekhar (Chandra). Kamesh Wali and I are co-chairs of an international organizing committee for the planning of a Chandra Centennial Symposium, to be held on the University of Chicago campus on the weekend of October 16-17, 2010. The confirmed speakers and talk titles are as follows:
Freeman Dyson (IAS) “Chandra’s Role in 20th Century Science”
Valeria Ferrari (Rome) “Gravitational Waves from Perturbed Stars”
John Friedman (Milwaukee) “Instabilities of Rotating Stars”
Gordon Garmire (Penn State) “The Chandra X-ray Telescope”
Jayant Narlikar (IUCAA)”Chandra’s Impact on Indian Astronomy”
Priyamvada Natarajan (Yale) “The Formation and Growth of Super-Massive Black Holes”
Jerry Ostriker (Princeton) (title TBA)
Roger Penrose (Oxford) “Mathematical Properties of Black Holes and Colliding Plane Waves”
Martin Rees (Cambridge) “Chandra’s Scientific Legacy”
G. Srinivasen (Raman Institute) “Chandra and Ramanujan;
Chandra’s Other Connections with India”
Rashid Sunyaev (MPA, Garching) (title TBA)
James Stone (Princeton) “Magnetohydrodynamics in Astrophysical Contexts”
Kip Thorne (Caltech) “Black Holes”
Clifford M. Will (Washington Univ.) “The Post-Newtonian Approximation”
In addition, October 15, 2010 will be the 100th birthday of Chandra’s widow, Lalitha, so we will hold a special celebration for her at the opening reception that evening. We will set up a website soon, which will provide further information and details, but please mark your calendars now.
Bob Wald