Elon Musk’s son named after S Chandrasekhar, Union IT minister discovers at UK AI Summit; know who that is

While attending the AI Safety Summit in the UK as India's representative, Union IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar unexpectedly encountered Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The series of surprises did not stop there as the IT minister struck up a conversation with the billionaire and found out that Musk's son's middle name was the same as his last name - Chandrasekhar. The Union minister shared this strange coincidence online in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

Posting on Musk's social media platform X, the Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics, and Technology posted that the tech billionaire shared that his son with tech venture capitalist Shivon Zilis has the middle name “Chandrasekhar”, after Nobel laureate Professor Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Elon Musk's son share the same name

Chandrasekhar said on X, while tweeting a photo with Musk, "Look who i bumped into at #AISafetySummit at Bletchley Park, UK. @elonmusk shared that his son with @shivon has a middle name "Chandrasekhar" - named after 1983 Nobel physicist Prof S Chandrasekhar". 

The Indian astrophysicist won the Nobel Prize for Physics for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars.

"Haha, yes, that’s true. We call him Sekhar for short, but the name was chosen in honour of our children’s heritage and the amazing Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar,” responded Zilis to Chandrasekhar’s post.

Who is Prof S Chandrasekhar?

The nobelprice.org has this description: 

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1983

Born: 19 October 1910, Lahore, India (now Pakistan)

Died: 21 August 1995, Chicago, IL, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Prize motivation: “for his theoretical studies of the physical processes of importance to the structure and evolution of the stars”

Chandra Telescope

Notably, the Chandra Telescope is named after Prof Chandrasekhar. NASA says, “The Chandra X-ray Observatory is the world's most powerful X-ray telescope. It has eight-times greater resolution and is able to detect sources more than 20-times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope.”

NASA added, “The Chandra orbits up to 200 times higher above Earth than the Hubble—about a third of the distance to the moon!”

His work

The Nobel website says, “Stars in the universe form from clouds of gas and dust. When these clouds are pulled together by gravitational force, energy is released in the form of heat. And when a high enough temperature is reached, reactions among the atomic nuclei in the star’s interior begin. Beginning in the 1930s, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar formulated theories for the development that stars subsequently undergo. He showed that when the hydrogen fuel of stars of a certain size begins to run out, it collapses into a compact, brilliant star known as a white dwarf.”

AI SUMMIT

Union minister Chandrasekhar has joined representatives from around the world at the artificial intelligence (AI) safety meet hosted by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire – the home of modern computing where celebrated British mathematician Alan Turing’s team broke the Enigma code during the Second World War.

He has held a series of meetings on the sidelines of the summit, including with UK Minister of State for AI and Intellectual Property Jonathan Camrose and Australian Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic.

“Discussed how the decision about the future of tech should not be left to big tech houses and that the governments should continue to work together and agree upon a framework of do’s & don’ts for ensuring safety and trust of users on the internet,” the minister said of his meeting with Camrose.

“Discussed about how Indian diaspora is significantly adding to the talent pool of Australia and highlighted the potential of India-Australia partnership in shaping the future of technology,” he said, with reference to his meeting with Husic.

On Wednesday, day one of the two-day summit, Chandrasekhar addressed the opening plenary session to lay out India's vision for innovative technology as the driving force of economic growth.

"For us, all things digital, the digital economy, the innovation ecosystem, represents real bread and butter, real goals and real objectives. Artificial intelligence for us, as we see it, is a kinetic enabler of the already accelerating, already expanding digital economy, innovation, growth and governance,” said the minister and former tech investor.

On Thursday, Sunak led the talks as he hailed the Bletchley Declaration signed on day one of the two-day meet as a “landmark” agreement between 28 countries, including India.

“The first-ever global AI Safety Summit led by the UK has already seen major AI powers sign up to the landmark Bletchley Declaration, agreeing on the shared responsibility to address the risks and urgently work together on frontier AI safety and research. The UK has led the way in this global conversation on AI safety, but no one country can tackle the risks alone,” he said.