A Brief History of Black Holes

Correction to what I say at 2:46 mins: The Schwarzschild radius of the Sun is a few miles (not a few thousand miles). What's in the illustration is correct. Sorry about that.

Correction to what I say at 4:47: It should have been "They had turned from mathematically wrong to mathematically *corrrect* but non-physical"

Black holes rose to the attention of physicists early in the 20th century when Karl Schwarzschild found that they are one of the possible solutions of the equations of Einstein's theory of general relativity. However, at first they were believed to be mathematical curiosities without physical relevance. In this video I explain how and why the situation changed.

[Stormgebieder]

Waw, that was a really good prediction! 5:49 October 6th 2020: Sir Roger Penrose won the 2020 Nobelprize in physics "for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity, " which he shared with Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez.

[Nick-zusn]

I'm addicted to her channel. She has such a rare quality of expression when it comes to complex concepts.

[rossmcleod]

Thankyou Sabine. I’m the kind of person who wants to know, but is utterly incapable of following the math. You have made the cosmos less elusive, even though I still don’t know how the toaster works.

[haushofer]

Not only great videos, but also prophetic gifts. Keep them coming! ;)

[Vasharan]

Thanks for the great video, Dr. Hossenfelder!
Although I would like to mention that the possibility of gravitational bodies so massive that light could not escape them has actually been around for a long time.
In the 18th century, John Michell speculated that extremely massive stars might have gravity so intense that light could not leave their surface.
Around the same time, Laplace also hypothesized similarly massive stars, calling them corps obscurs (dark bodies).
Certainly these classical black holes based on Newtonian physics are very different from Einsteinian black holes as we know them, but they were discussed in scientific circles and even had mathematical models.

[HerbertHeyduck]

Sabine explains so heartwarmingly clearly what happens at the limits of the physics I know, that it is a pleasure to listen to her, even if I only understand a fraction of it.

[johnkeck]

Penrose definitely deserves the Nobel. He is such a refreshing thinker.

[zanthornton]

Thank you for captions and translations.

[CaptainJeoy]

Dr Hossenfelder, I think the Nobel prize committee watches your videos 😅. Congratulations to Penrose 🔥 truly deserved.

[KeithRowley]

Thank you - lucid as always. it has also been my opinion, albeit as a layman, that Penrose has earned the Nobel. Also, much of his thinking is so original that many of his ideas have yet to see fruition.

[firewoody]

You are the prettiest scientist I love your channel

[Bassotronics]

Thank You!
I love everything that deals with these mysterious things.

[VASL]

Not only does Penrose deserve a Nobel Prize for his Black Hole work, he needs to be taken seriously on his Cyclical Universe theory.

[FlorianProck-Schauer-jk]

I love watching your Videos Dr Hossenfelder, I also like it how people like you or Roger Penrose are the only ones that get it right. Quantum mechanics is the theory that has to adapt, General Relativity should be the basis. I recently made a video series on the Schwarzschild Solutions using Cartan's equations if anyone is interested. I think Differential Forms are the natural way to derive those Solutions since it is the most elegant way I know.

[Azure]

Sabine! I absolutely love your channel. Thank you for this content.

[keefebaby]

Love the outfit, you look like you’ve come straight from tatooine

[i.m.i.]

Thank you much for your link. I was involved in the first LiGO data project. The wave process was a wonderful way to celebrate Albert's equation. 100 years past...

[presura]

And he's got the the Nobel prize!

[trucid]

I'm a simple man. When I see a new video by Sabine, I click.

[dupazelli]

Thanks for the video. Somehow, you make it easier for us, not physicists, to understand the beauty of astrophysics . Greetings from Brazil !