Elon Musk's Chandrasekhar connection with India-born Nobel physicist in spotlight

Indian-origin name Chandrasekhar or Chandrashekhar, depending on regional semantics, quite literally means on top of the moon. During the now-concluded Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit in London, an encounter between Indian minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar and billionaire tech magnate Elon Musk ended up underscoring the Chandrasekhar connection Musk's family shares with India.

"Elon Musk shared that his son with Shivon Zilis has a middle name "Chandrasekhar", named after 1983 Nobel physicist Prof. S Chandrasekhar," minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who also holds Electronics and Technology ministerial portfolio in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, while sharing an image of himself with Musk at the summit.

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Responding to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Shivon Zilis, the Director of neurotechnology company Neuralink, who shares the parenthood of a set of twins with Elon Musk, said: "Haha, yes, that’s true. We call him Sekhar for short, but the name was chosen in honor of our children’s heritage and the amazing Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar."

Spotlight on Nobel-winning physicist S. Chandrasekhar's legacy

Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars.

Born in Lahore in British India in 1910, Chandrasekhar's work became the source that yielded many of the current theoretical models of the later evolutionary stages of massive stars and blackholes. The concept of Chandrasekhar Limit, the maximum mass possible for a stable white dwarf star, is named after him.

Shivon Zilis, the acclaimed venture capitalist famed for her investments in the field of artificial intelligence, was born to a Punjabi Indian mother and a Canadian father in Canada's Ontario. In November 2021, for the first time, it was revealed that Zilis had twins, a son named Strider and a daughter named Azure, with Elon Musk. They maintain that the twins were born via in vitro fertilisation.

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Meanwhile, at the UK AI summit, the leading AI developers agreed to work with governments to test new frontier models before they are released to reduce the risks posed by rapidly developing technology. The consensus is being described as a "landmark achievement" at the conclusion of the summit.

(With inputs from agencies)