Schwarzschild Radius - History

History

In 1915, Karl Schwarzschild obtained an exact solution to Einstein's field equations for the gravitational field outside a non-rotating, spherically symmetric body (see Schwarzschild metric). Using the definition, the solution contained a term of the form ; where the value of making this term singular has come to be known as the Schwarzschild radius. The physical significance of this singularity, and whether this singularity could ever occur in nature, was debated for many decades; a general acceptance of the possibility of a black hole did not occur until the second half of the 20th century.

Read more about this topic:  Schwarzschild Radius

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.
    Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)

    Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)