First Nobel Prize in Physics
Awarded in the year 1901
Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, German Physicist
For the discovery of X-rays
Total No. of Nobel prizes given so far 109
Nobel prize for physics was not awarded for six years
1916, 1931, 1934, 1940, 1941, 1942
Two women who won
Marie Curie (1903) and
Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963)
Indian Physicists who received Nobel Prize
Chandra Shekar Venkata Raman/Sir C.V.Raman
November 7, 1888 - November 21, 1970
•Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
• and knighthood in 1929.
Sir.C.V. Raman was awarded Nobel
Prize of Physics in 1930 for his
“Raman Effect” related to light.
in 1924
Dr. Subramanian Chandrashekar
October 19, 1910 - August 21, 1995
• Astro-Physicist
• awarded Nobel Prize for Physics in 1983 for his
theory on ‘white dwarf stars’
• Defined ‘Chandrasekhar Limit’.
• Dr. Subramaniyan is the son of the elder
brother of the
• 'Nobel Prize Winner'-Sir C.V.Raman
The nearest known white
dwarf is Sirius B, at 8.6
light years,
The Chandrasekhar limit is the maximum mass of a
stable white dwarf star = 1.39 Msun (2.765 × 1030 ) kg
The Chandrasekhar limit is the mass above which white dwarfs with masses
greater than the limit would be subject to gravitational collapse, evolving into a
different type of stellar remnant, such as a neutron star or black hole.
A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have
exhausted their nuclear fuel. Near the end of its nuclear burning
stage, this type of star expels most of its outer material, creating a
planetary nebula. Only the hot core of the star remains.
They can go supernova. Because many stars orbit others in relatively close proximity, a white
dwarf in a binary system can begin to cannibalise its partner, pulling material away from it. The
white dwarf continues to gobble up matter from the other star until eventually a critical mass i
reached, triggering a chain reaction that results in the white dwarf violently exploding in a type
Ia supernova.
2. Their gravity is 350,000x Earth’s. The more mass a white dwarf has, the greater the gravity,
the more its matter is compressed and, therefore, the smaller the dwarf is.
3. Many will become black dwarfs. A white dwarf is the core of a dead star and these stellar
remnants gradually cool until they no longer radiate – in other words, they become more or
less the same temperature as the background of space. At this point, they are considered ‘blac
dwarfs’. However, no black dwarfs exist yet because this process takes trillions of years, many
times longer than the current age of our universe.
4. A teaspoon of white dwarf matter weighs 5.5 tons. Since they are extremely dense.
5. The Sun will one day become a white dwarf. The most massive stars will eventually go
supernova, but stars withanything from 0.8 to about ten solar masses will ultimately become
white dwarfs. This represents over 97 per cent of the Milky Way – most of the stars you can see
in the night sky.