Nick Noorani Website

At a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in England in 1935, the views of the elite were challenged by a young immigrant scientist from India— Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.9 He presented his theory of the “black hole,” which went against established views of how stars die. With little evidence to contradict him, the British scientists engaged in groupthink and patently rejected his ideas. Chandrasekhar eventually left England and established himself in the United States. Forty-eight years after that fateful lecture in England, astrophysicists finally caught up with Chandrasekhar, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics. The inability of the members of the Royal Astronomical Society to entertain knowledge and evidence that would challenge the way they thought delayed progress in physics and cost them a remarkable talent. Similarly, businesses that fail to create an environment in which immigrants and others can challenge prevailing thought are at risk of stagnating and losing their talent.

Immigrants as Innovators
Boosting Canada’s
Global Competitiveness