The existence of a mass limit for white dwarfs is usually attributed solely to the late astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910--95), and this limit is named after him.1 But as is often the case, the history of this discovery is more nuanced. In this paper I will show that the existence of a maximum mass was first established by Edmund C. Stoner (1899--1968), a physicist who began experimental research under the supervision of Rutherford at the Cavendish in Cambridge, but later switched to theoretical work.
...MoreDescription Stoner's work is often ignored in contrast to Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar for whom the limit is named after.
Similar Citations
Article
Stanley, Matthew;
(2007)
So Simple a Thing as a Star: The Eddington--Jeans Debate over Astrophysical Phenomenology
(/isis/citation/CBB000771301/)
Article
Cenadelli, Davide;
(2008)
The Hydrogen Abundance in Stars: A First Major Step for Quantitative Astrophysics
(/isis/citation/CBB001034774/)
Article
Cenadelli, Davide;
(2010)
Solving the Giant Stars Problem: Theories of Stellar Evolution from the 1930s to the 1950s
(/isis/citation/CBB000932990/)
Article
Holberg, J. B.;
(2009)
The Discovery of the Existence of White Dwarf Stars: 1862 to 1930
(/isis/citation/CBB000932194/)
Article
Wesemael, Francois;
(2010)
“Unaffected by Fortune, Good or Bad”: Context and Reception of Chandrasekhar's Mass-Radius Relationship for White Dwarfs, 1935--1965
(/isis/citation/CBB000954802/)
Thesis
Ipe, Alex Ike;
(2002)
Plausibility and the Theoreticians' Regress: Constructing the Evolutionary Fate of Stars
(/isis/citation/CBB001562508/)
Article
Saslaw, William C.;
(2000)
Chandrasekhar and Astrophysical Style
(/isis/citation/CBB000110104/)
Book
Katia Moskvitch;
(2020)
Neutron Stars: The Quest to Understand the Zombies of the Cosmos
(/isis/citation/CBB559459540/)
Chapter
Michael Rotondo;
(2016)
On the concept of degenerate stars: the case of white dwarfs
(/isis/citation/CBB672582700/)
Book
Hearnshaw, J. B.;
(2014)
The Analysis of Starlight: Two Centuries of Astronomical Spectroscopy
(/isis/citation/CBB001551779/)
Book
Ileana Chinnici;
(2019)
Decoding the Stars: A Biography of Angelo Secchi, Jesuit and Scientist
(/isis/citation/CBB547940053/)
Book
Harm J. Habing;
(2018)
The Birth of Modern Astronomy
(/isis/citation/CBB858392112/)
Article
S. Mohammad Mozaffari;
Jeremy J. Drake;
(2021)
Algol Anomaly or Careful Observations of its Brightness? The Values Recorded for the Magnitude of Algol in the Medieval Astronomical Corpus
(/isis/citation/CBB198385705/)
Article
Wesemael, François;
(2009)
Harkins, Perrin and the Alternative Paths to the Solution of the Stellar-Energy Problem, 1915--1923
(/isis/citation/CBB000932198/)
Article
Wesemael, François;
Duchetto, Karl Del;
Racine, René;
(2011)
From J. Winthrop, Jr, to E. E. Barnard: The Arduous Path to the First Sighting of Amalthea
(/isis/citation/CBB001023561/)
Book
Nath, Biman;
(2013)
The Story of Helium and the Birth of Astrophysics
(/isis/citation/CBB001214531/)
Book
R. H. Frater;
(2017)
Four Pillars Of Radio Astronomy
(/isis/citation/CBB003024913/)
Article
Steinicke, W.;
(2012)
The M51 Mystery: Lord Rosse, Robinson, South and the Discovery of Spiral Structure in 1845
(/isis/citation/CBB001221499/)
Article
Gualandi, Andrea;
Bònoli, Fabrizio;
(2009)
The Search for Stellar Parallaxes and the Discovery of the Aberration of Light: The Observational Proofs of the Earth's Revolution, Eustachio Manfredi, and the “Bologna Case”
(/isis/citation/CBB000932195/)
Article
Hearnshaw, John;
(2010)
Auguste Comte's Blunder: An Account of the First Century of Stellar Spectroscopy and How It Took One Hundred Years to Prove that Comte Was Wrong!
(/isis/citation/CBB001034815/)
Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics
British Journal for the History of Science
Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology
Be the first to comment!