EINSTEIN & BLACK HOLES

 How did Einstein know about black holes?

Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, propounded in 1915, laid the foundation for our understanding of black holes. It was not that Einstein "knew" about black holes in the way we understand them today, but rather that his equations allowed for the theoretical existence of such objects.

Einstein's theory described gravity as a distortion of space-time caused by massive objects. Although he did not initially propose the concept of black holes, his equations predicted the possibility of regions where the gravitational pull was so intense that nothing, not even light, could escape.

In 1916, physicist Karl Schwarzschild discovered a solution to Einstein's equations, which described what we now call a Schwarzschild black hole. This solution outlined the characteristics of a region in space where an object could theoretically collapse to an infinitely dense point, creating a singularity surrounded by an event horizon.

It was not until much later, in the mid-20th century, that astronomers and physicists began to seriously consider the existence of black holes as physical entities in our universe. He used Einstein's theory and subsequent advances in astrophysics to detect and study black holes, contributing to our modern understanding of these mysterious cosmic objects.