Chandrasekhar–Eddington dispute
History article about the disagreements between Arthur Eddington and S. Chandraskhar / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the Chandrasekhar–Eddington dispute of the early 20th century, English astronomer Arthur Eddington and the Indian astronomer Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar disagreed over the correct theory to describe the final stages of a star's lifecycle. During the dispute, Chandrasekhar was at the beginning of his career and Eddington was a renowned physicist of the time. Chandrasekhar had proposed a limit, now known as Chandrasekhar limit, indicating a maximum limit for the mass of a white dwarf star. In a series of conferences and encounters Eddington advocated for an alternative theory, openly criticizing and mocking Chandrasekhar's models.
Chandrasekhar's theories ended up being successful in astronomy; he would receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983, for his stellar models. Chandrasekhar's limit became a supporting theoretical evidence for the existence of black holes.