Harish-Chandra

Harish-Chandra (né Harishchandra) FRS ( 11 October 1923 – 16 October 1983) was an Indian-American mathematician and physicist who did fundamental work in representation theory, especially harmonic analysis on semisimple Lie groups.

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.

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.