Shattering Stars - the Story of the Indian Scientist Mocked for his Ideas

You may not have heard of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-95) – but that’s no problem – you are about to.  When studying in the 1930s at Cambridge, Chandra was mocked for his idea that not all stars become white dwarves at the end of their lifecycle.  He believed that when stars achieved a certain mass, they would form something denser – denser than anything that had been previously observed.

In fact, Chandra was the first scientist to start thinking about what we now call black holes.  After his now infamous knockback, Chandra’s life took a different path but he still won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his work on stellar evolution.  This is his story – and great use is made of recordings of Chandrasekhar himself.  It is directed by Peter Galison, a historian of science at Harvard University.  Special mention should be made about the wonderful art direction and animation by Shiv Kachiwala.

Galison’s short film sheds light on the life and achievements of one of the 20th century’s most remarkable scientific thinkers, while also examining how scientific endeavours are sometimes influenced by human flaws.