Harish-Chandra
Indian-American mathematician (1923–1983)
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Early life
Harish-Chandra was born in Kanpur. He was educated at B.N.S.D. College, Kanpur and at the University of Allahabad. After receiving his master's degree in physics in 1940, he moved to the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for further studies under Homi J. Bhabha.
In 1945, he moved to University of Cambridge, and worked as a research student under Paul Dirac. While at Cambridge, he attended lectures by Wolfgang Pauli, and during one of them, Harish-Chandra pointed out a mistake in Pauli's work. The two became lifelong friends. During this time he became increasingly interested in mathematics. He obtained his PhD, Infinite Irreducible Representations of the Lorentz Group, at Cambridge in 1947 under Dirac.
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Honors and awards
He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was the recipient of the Cole Prize of the American Mathematical Society, in 1954. The Indian National Science Academy honoured him with the Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal in 1974. In 1981, he received an honorary degree from Yale University.
The mathematics department of V.S.S.D. College, Kanpur celebrates his birthday every year in different forms, which includes lectures from students and professors from various colleges, institutes and students' visit to Harish-Chandra Research Institute.
The Indian Government named the Harish-Chandra Research Institute, an institute dedicated to Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, after him.
Robert Langlands wrote in a biographical article of Harish-Chandra:
He was considered for the Fields Medal in 1958, but a forceful member of the selection committee in whose eyes Thom was a Bourbakist was determined not to have two. So Harish-Chandra, whom he also placed on the Bourbaki camp, was set aside.
He was also a recipient of the Padma Bhushan in 1977.
Personal life
In 1952, Harish-Chandra married Lalitha "Lily" Kale (1934–2019). Kale, whose father was an Indian food scientist and whose mother was a Polish Jew, was born in Warsaw but grew up in Bangalore after her family fled Poland in 1939 or 1940. They had two daughters, Premala Chandra and Devika Chandra; Premala also became a physicist.
Death
Starting in 1969, Harish-Chandra began to experience heart attacks. A second and third heart attack occurred in 1970 and 1982, respectively. From then, his physical capabilities began to decline. A fourth heart attack occurred in 1983, leaving him mostly bedridden and in isolation. On the day after a conference organized for him and mathematician Armand Borel took place, Harish-Chandra died from his final heart attack.