COSMIC RAYS - [with ownership signature of Nobel Prize winner S. CHANDRASEKHAR]

Urbana, Illinois: Clarendon Press, 1948. Hardcover. Fine. Medium octavo (24x16 cm). - xiii,424 pages. - Full dark blue cloth, title in gilt on spine. Very fine. - With 6 plates, 9 tables, 129 figures and 3 appendices. - With ownership signature "S. Chandrasekhar" on the front free end-paper. - The Hungarian physicist LAJOS JANOSSY (1912-1968), adopted son of the renowned Marxist philosopher GYORGY (Georg) LUKACS (1885-1971), worked, focusing on astrophysics, in England and Ireland from 1936 to 1950. In 1950, he returned to Hungary to join the newly created Central Research Institute for Physics, which he directed from 1956 on. - The present work is based mostly on his pioneering experimental and theoretical work on cosmic rays. In 1950, he also published important research on particle showers, introducing the application of joint probability densities, now called Janossy densities, in the theory of random point processes. - SUBRAHMANYAN CHANDRASEKHAR (1910-1995) is probably best known for his introduction of the idea of black holes. He was the first astrophysicist to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded to him in 1983, jointly with William A. Fowler.