born in modern Pakistan. He was the first to identify white dwarf stars as end-products of stellar evolution, and developed a theory which used relativistic effects to account for their degeneracy pressure. He calculated an upper mass limit (the Chandrasekhar limit) beyond which a star would enter a more dramatic final phase, setting the scene for the modern theory of black holes. He studied how stars transfer energy by radiation in their atmospheres, publishing his findings in Radiative Transfer (1950). Chandrasekhar shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics with W. A. Fowler.