Komaravolu Chandrasekharan (21 November 1920 – 13 April 2017) was a professor at ETH Zurich and a founding faculty member of School of Mathematics,

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) is a public deemed research university located in Mumbai, India that is dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the ...

(TIFR). He is known for his work in

number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and integer-valued functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mat ...

and

summability In mathematics, a divergent series is an infinite series that is not convergent, meaning that the infinite sequence of the partial sums of the series does not have a finite limit. If a series converges, the individual terms of the series must ...

. He received the

Padma Shri Padma Shri ( IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, the award is conf ...

, the

Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award The Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology (SSB) is a science award in India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-la ...

, and the Ramanujan Medal, and he was an honorary fellow of TIFR. He was president of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) from 1971 to 1974.

Biography

Chandrasekharan was born on 21 November 1920 in Machilipatnam,

Andhra Pradesh Andhra Pradesh (, abbr. AP) is a state in the south-eastern coastal region of India. It is the seventh-largest state by area covering an area of and tenth-most populous state with 49,386,799 inhabitants. It is bordered by Telangana to the ...

. Chandrasekharan completed his high school from Bapatla village in Guntur from

. He completed M.A. in mathematics from the

Presidency College, Chennai Presidency College is an art, commerce, and science college in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. On 16 October 1840, this school was established as the Madras Preparatory School before being repurposed as a high school, and then a gra ...

and a PhD from the Department of Mathematics,

University of Madras The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

in 1942, under the supervision of

K. Ananda Rau K. Ananda Rau (21 September 1893 – 22 January 1966) was an eminent Indian mathematician and a contemporary of Ramanujan. Though Rau was six years junior to Ramanujan, his mathematical trajectory, unlike Ramanujan's, was very much a conventi ...

. When Chandrasekharan was with the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...

, Princeton, US, Homi Bhabha invited Chandrashekharan to join the School of Mathematics of the

(TIFR). Chandrashekharan persuaded mathematicians L. Schwarz,

C. L. Siegel Carl Ludwig Siegel (31 December 1896 – 4 April 1981) was a German mathematician specialising in analytic number theory. He is known for, amongst other things, his contributions to the Thue–Siegel–Roth theorem in Diophantine approximation, ...

and others from all over the world to visit TIFR and deliver lectures. In 1965, Chandrasekharan left the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research to join the ETH Zurich, where he retired in 1988. He was a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

Selected works

*with

Salomon Bochner Salomon Bochner (20 August 1899 – 2 May 1982) was an Austrian mathematician, known for work in mathematical analysis, probability theory and differential geometry. Life He was born into a Jewish family in Podgórze (near Kraków), then Aus ...

: *with S. Minakshisundaram: * reprinting 2012 * * * *

Notes

References

– India's who is who

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chandrashekhar, Komaravolu S. 20th-century Indian mathematicians Telugu people People from Andhra Pradesh Recipients of the Padma Shri in literature & education Indian number theorists Mathematical analysts Academic staff of ETH Zurich Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 1920 births 2017 deaths University of Madras alumni 21st-century Indian mathematicians People from Guntur district Scientists from Andhra Pradesh Recipients of the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in Mathematical Science Indian emigrants to Switzerland Presidents of the International Mathematical Union