WHEN SCIENCE STOOD STILL (Not a Reference to Current Events)

I had the pleasure of working (virtually) with the author of this book while we shared responsibilities on a nonfiction CYBILS AWARDS panel. I enjoyed her thorough readings and comments, her balanced discussions and considerations of nominees, and her strong science background. That makes recommending this new nonfiction picture book a special pleasure. I would have endorsed it and encouraged readers to give it try if I had never met Shruthi, but now I can also feel an association with her success, although the credit for its excellence is all hers. And today is her new book's BIRTHDAY! Read on and join me in celebrating!

Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2025

The opening lines of WHEN SCIENCE STOOD STILL: How S. Chandrasekar Predicted the Existence of Black Holes won me over immediately. They come before the title page and that is a design/editorial decision I fully endorse:

"When scientists get things right, 

Science leaps forward.

When they get things wrong, 

they learn from their mistakes,

and science still marches forward.

But sometimes, 

even when scientists get it right,

nobody pays attention.

Then, 

for a while,

science stands still."

Think about that. It certainly made me pause to think. And that 'think time" prior to reading really mattered to me. This new picture book, written by Shruthi Rao and illustrated by Srinidhi Srinivasan, reveals what is to me a heartbreaking astrophysics story. (Does that description also make you think? Heartbreaking and astrophysics in the same sentence?) There are plenty of heartbreaking stories of brilliance in sciences, math, the arts, etc. in which individuals and their discoveries or talents are overlooked or actively suppressed for a variety of reasons. Most of those reasons have to do with pride, power, prejudice, or pettiness of the general public or a specifically related access-group. 

I am a fan of both the illustrations and the fluid narrative text for this new story. The cover and the first pages reveal that this was a child, then a growing boy, who sought answers in math and science. He pondered the pages of adult texts in his grandfather's library and then pondered the night skies above the beaches at Madras, India. Weaving together hours of reading, puzzling, and imagining with confirmed facts of science, he arrived at a depth of understanding of how gases work inside stars. Eventually, while still very young, he combined equations and physics and insights to realize that dying stars could implode into black holes, something never yet known to exist.

Born in 1910, this conclusion came into his fertile mind at the age of eighteen. Science had no thoughts of such an entity, although today you could pose the question in many kindergartens:  "What is a black hole?" Most if not all of those littles would give a response that echoes Chandra's breakthrough theory.  At the time, though, this seemed a wild idea pulled from the dark, literally. Even so, his rationale and coherent theory about the nature and physics of stars won high praise among India's esteemed scientists.

The story reveals that this young, well-schooled, already accomplished Indian man longed to pursue further study and credibility in England, in part to prove his worth to those whose government had colonized, dominated, and too often dehumanized the people of India. With strong credentials, including multiple published astrophysics papers, he was given a scholarship from his home country and traveled to England.

Is anyone else guessing that his welcome and acceptance may not have been warm and approving? That was my prediction, but I was pleased to see that a prestigious professor praised and encouraged him, even sponsoring him at an academic gathering to present his paper. Here's where my age and experience had me feeling cautious, that things might not go well. The heartbreak comes with the strong negative reactions from that event, which I'll let you read for yourselves. 

Suffice it to say, it did not go well and the reasons behind it were potentially intentional. Possibly sinister, although that is uncertain. That response did, however, lead to Chandrasekhar eventually moving his studies to the United States, where he gained education, success, even fame for various accomplishments in his field. But not on this topic of Black Holes. What that early rejection did was to SHUT DOWN peer acceptance for his theory. His enthusiasm and solid data for his arguments could not get traction, leaving the concept of Black Holes in an academic black hole for decades. As the text so effectively and concisely states:

"Chandra moved on. But the science of stars stood still."

Eventually, other advances in science, including technology and computers, returned Chandra to this topic in collaboration with scientists from other fields. Advanced telescopes eventually revealed the first view of an actual BLACK HOLE, more than fifty years after he first argued for the concept with math and science to back him up. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in astrophysics. As much as this was a huge honor, he reported that his greatest thrill was having science finally acknowledge the truth of the science of stars. Illustration on the concluding pages offers a callback to the little boy still at the heart of a stargazing man, a personification of  the brilliance of stars. 

Back matter provides a thorough profile of Chandra's life, accomplishments, and intervening events. A timeline of the science related to this topic offers valuable sequential insights. Alongside are short passages relating the science of bombs with the science of black holes, some "Trivia" related to the subject, and resources. 

My heartbreak isn't that this took time (science does) or that a career was crushed (it wasn't) or that generations of students and scientists were denied access to studying this material earlier in their careers (they were). All of those realities are true, not only for this topic but for many others.  None of that is right or good, but is part of the reality within academia.  (SUBJECT TO FUTURE CHANGE, I HOPE?) 

My heartbreak is for that little boy who wanted to understand, who  was convinced answers existed, who found and argued for the truths of his theory, but was denied a legitimate audience for his thoughts. It's the SHUTDOWN of free discussion and consideration of ideas that is both emotionally sad and intellectually infuriating. This is also why this book is so important. 

Not only is this a celebration of a brilliant life. Not only is it an account of the long journey from initial theories to final proving and acceptance. It is a cautionary tale about ways in which truth can be suppressed, but assurance that truth can and will find its way to the light. Even in a black hole of denial. My recommendation to read this and share it could not be stronger. 

On a personal note:

I  share my own insights and values within these posts. I try to do so with openness and awareness that not all may agree with me, but I avoid political or direct conflict discussions. Even so, this book left me with some unavoidable contemporary connections that I feel compelled to share.

Today's news is filled with mixed beliefs, reactions, decrees, and distress, especially regarding the validity or reliability of confirmed science. That struggle is real, becoming more widespread, and makes this new book even more compelling. In a sense, the remarkable account of events in this nonfiction picture book left me with even greater concern about those who today deny proven science based on the claims of others. They might find justification in this approach at overturning proven science, thinking that the contrarian claims will one day be proven to be true, The difference, though, is that disputes with current issues (cause/effect of various conditions, effectiveness and necessity for vaccines, and even the reality of accelerated climate change through human actions) are not discoveries or investigations, math or science realities that reveal new facts. Or even science-based theories. They are, as most grounded thinkers affirm, simply claims. Many have been fully debunked through standard science evaluation. Many may be shaped by the same issues Chandra's work faced-- jealousy, power, even potentially sinister self-serving. None of this is mentioned or even implied in the book, but  such things floated through my mind during and after reading. That title, revealing how SCIENCE can stand still, is chilling. To some degree, the disruption of proven science threatens to make past progress and stability stand still, or worse. I hope you'll read this new book, and also reflect on the intent and background of those who are actively undermining science for their own purposes.

HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY, Shruthi! 
Readers, watch for an interview with Shruthi in a post coming soon!