Anderson and Stoner Published White Dwarf Mass Limits Before Chandrasekhar

Abstract

In their engaging recountals of Chandrasekhar's extraordinary career (Physics Today, vol 63, Issue 12, Dec 2010), neither Dyson nor Wali mention that Chandrasekhar was the third person not the first, to publish a white dwarf mass limit incorporating a relativistic treatment of degenerate electrons. As it has become a common misconception that Chandrasekhar was the first, a clarifying reminder on this historical point is warranted. In short, the white dwarf mass limit widely attributed to Chandrasekhar (1931) should be the specific white dwarf mass limit calculated for a polytrope. The insight that a relativistic treatment of degeneracy leads to the existence of a white dwarf mass limit first appeared in papers of W. Anderson (1929) and E.C. Stoner (1930) for a uniform density star. Accordingly, Chandrasekhar (1931) cites Stoner (1930) and points out that the polytrope white dwarf mass limit is less than Stoner's uniform density white dwarf mass limit by about 20%.