Who first came up with the idea of Black Holes?

Answer 1

A paper written by the Rev John Michell in 1783 was discovered in the 1970s. This is the first known discussion of the concept of a black hole. John Michell (1724-1793) was born three years before the death of Isaac Newton. He became a well-known British geologist and astronomer and was later regarded as the 'Father of Seismology' in his study of Earthquakes. He is also credited with the idea of Binary Stars, the demonstration of an inverse square law in magnetism, and was the inventor of the torsion balance before instigating the experiment, later completed by Cavendish, to weigh the Earth.

At the time the 'corpuscular' theory of light was the vogue. This regarded light as being made up of 'corpuscles' or particles similar in some respects to the modern idea of the photon. It was therefore considered a possibility that light could be affected by gravity in the same way as ordinary matter. Over one hundred years prior to this in 1676 Olaus Roemer had discovered that the speed of light was finite through observed variations in the period of Jupiter's moon Io. Observations of stellar aberration by James Bradley in 1728 produced further confirmation and a more accurate value for the speed of light of 295,000 kilometers per second compared to today's figure of 300,000 km per second. The Newtonian concept of escape velocity as being the minimum velocity needed to escape from a planet's surface to infinity was well understood. For a spherical mass M of radius R it is simply: sqrt(2GM/R) where G is the Gravitational constant. The escape velocity thus increases as the object's mass increases and also increases if the mass remains the same but the radius gets smaller.

Michell pondered a body so massive that the escape velocity at its surface was equal to the speed of light. In his 1783 paper to the Royal Society Michell wrote:

If the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density as the Sun in the proportion of five hundred to one, and by supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its [mass] with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it, by its own proper gravity.
In the above Michell contemplated the existence of a star 500 times the radius of the Sun and of the same density. For such an object he calculated that the gravitational field would be so strong at its surface that the escape velocity would exceed the speed of light. From this hypothetical star not even light could escape and the star would be invisible. Although he thought it unlikely, he considered the possibility that many such objects could be present in the cosmos without us being able to see them.

In 1796, thirteen years later the great French mathematician, astronomer and physicist Pierre Laplace proposed similar ideas to those of Michell in his famous paper 'Exposition du Systeme du Monde'.

In the early 1800's experiments on optical interference led to the predominance of the wave theory of light and the end of the corpuscular theory. Since light waves were thought to be unaffected by gravitation interest in the hypothetical "dark stars" ceased.

In 1905 Albert Einstein published his Special Theory of Relativity and in 1915 his General Theory of relativity. The General Theory was a new theory of gravitation and one of its fundamental predictions was the effect of gravity on light. According to the theory matter causes space-time to curve. The paths followed by light rays or matter is determined by the curvature of the space-time and allowed a modern scientific proof of Mitchell's hypothesis.

Answer 2

The idea began in 1784 by geologist John Michell
Then in 1796, mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace promoted the same idea.
In 1915, Einstein developed general relativity, and one of the predictions of his theory is black holes.
In the same year Karl Schwarzschild proved that black holes could theoretically exist.
So no one person is responsible, though most people credit Einstein with the first theory that provided the physical mechanism for the formation of a black hole. Several noted physicists elaborated on the idea in the early 20th century.

Answer 3

Others came up with the idea of a mass so big it kept light from escaping. But the first person to use the actual name "black hole" was John Wheeler in 1969. See the link below:
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/971124b.html

Answer 4

The concept of a body so massive that even light could not escape was put forward by the geologist John Michell in a 1784 paper sent to Henry Cavendish and published by the Royal Society.[5] At that time, the Newtonian theory of gravity and the concept of escape velocity were well known. Michell computed that a body with 500 times the radius of the Sun and of the same density would have, at its surface, an escape velocity exceeding that of the speed of light, and therefore would be invisible. In his words:

“ If the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density as the Sun were to exceed that of the Sun in the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it would have acquired at its surface greater velocity than that of light, and consequently supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its vis inertiae (inertial mass), with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it by its own proper gravity. ”

Michell considered the possibility that many such objects that cannot be seen might be present in the cosmos.

In 1796, the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace promoted the same idea in the first and second editions of his book Exposition du système du Monde (it was removed from later editions). The idea gained little attention in the nineteenth century, since light was thought to be a massless wave, hence not influenced by gravity.

In 1915, Albert Einstein developed the theory of gravity called general relativity, having earlier shown that gravity does influence light. A few months later, Karl Schwarzschild gave the solution for the gravitational field of a point mass and a spherical mass,[6][7] showing that a black hole could theoretically exist. The Schwarzschild radius is now known to be the radius of the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole, but this was not well understood at that time. Schwarzschild himself thought it was not physical. A few months after Schwarzschild, a student of Lorentz, Johannes Droste, independently gave the same solution for the point mass and wrote more extensively about its properties.

In 1930, the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar argued that special relativity demonstrated that a non-radiating body above 1.44 solar masses, now known as the Chandrasekhar limit, would collapse since there was nothing known at that time that could stop it from doing so. His arguments were opposed by Arthur Eddington, who believed that something would inevitably stop the collapse. Both were correct, since a white dwarf more massive than the Chandrasekhar limit will collapse into a neutron star. However, a neutron star above about three solar masses (the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit) will itself become unstable against collapse due to similar physics.

In 1939, Robert Oppenheimer and H. Snyder predicted that massive stars could undergo a dramatic gravitational collapse. Black holes could, in principle, be formed in nature. Such objects for a while were called frozen stars since the collapse would be observed to rapidly slow down and become heavily redshifted near the Schwarzschild radius. The mathematics showed that an outside observer would see the surface of the star frozen in time at the instant where it crosses that radius. These hypothetical objects were not the topic of much interest until the late 1960s. Most physicists believed that they were a peculiar feature of the highly symmetric solution found by Schwarzschild, and that objects collapsing in nature would not form black holes.

Interest in black holes was rekindled in 1967 because of theoretical and experimental progress. In 1970, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose proved that black holes are a generic feature in Einstein's theory of gravity, and cannot be avoided in some collapsing objects.[1] Interest was renewed in the astronomical community with the discovery of pulsars. Shortly thereafter, the expression "black hole" was coined by theoretical physicist John Wheeler,[8] being first used in his public lecture Our Universe: the Known and Unknown on 29 December 1967. The older Newtonian objects of Michell and Laplace are often referred to as "dark stars" to distinguish them from the "black holes" of general relativity.

God Bless You :)

Answer 5

Albert Einstien came up with the idea of black holes.

Answer 6

Yap John Mitchell in 1784

Answer 7

John Mitchell in (get that!) 1784 !
At that time, a reasonable value for the speed of light had been established, and thanks to the theory of gravitation from Isaac Newton (from just 100 years before) Mitchell as able to use that to derive a theoretical object so massive that light itself would not escape. Of course, the exact values computed would later be show to be off as Newton's law of gravity is a special case of the relativity theory that came more than 100 years later.
Check it out in the "History" section of the Wikipedia page (see link)

Answer 8

Jean Luc Picard

Answer 9

The concept of a body so massive that even light could not escape was put forward by the geologist John Michell in a 1784 paper sent to Henry Cavendish and published by the Royal Society.[5] At that time, the Newtonian theory of gravity and the concept of escape velocity were well known. Michell computed that a body with 500 times the radius of the Sun and of the same density would have, at its surface, an escape velocity exceeding that of the speed of light, and therefore would be invisible. In his words:

“ If the semi-diameter of a sphere of the same density as the Sun were to exceed that of the Sun in the proportion of 500 to 1, a body falling from an infinite height towards it would have acquired at its surface greater velocity than that of light, and consequently supposing light to be attracted by the same force in proportion to its vis inertiae (inertial mass), with other bodies, all light emitted from such a body would be made to return towards it by its own proper gravity. ”

Michell considered the possibility that many such objects that cannot be seen might be present in the cosmos.

In 1796, the mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace promoted the same idea in the first and second editions of his book Exposition du système du Monde (it was removed from later editions). The idea gained little attention in the nineteenth century, since light was thought to be a massless wave, hence not influenced by gravity.

In 1915, Albert Einstein developed the theory of gravity called general relativity, having earlier shown that gravity does influence light. A few months later, Karl Schwarzschild gave the solution for the gravitational field of a point mass and a spherical mass,[6][7] showing that a black hole could theoretically exist. The Schwarzschild radius is now known to be the radius of the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole, but this was not well understood at that time. Schwarzschild himself thought it was not physical. A few months after Schwarzschild, a student of Lorentz, Johannes Droste, independently gave the same solution for the point mass and wrote more extensively about its properties.

In 1930, the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar argued that special relativity demonstrated that a non-radiating body above 1.44 solar masses, now known as the Chandrasekhar limit, would collapse since there was nothing known at that time that could stop it from doing so. His arguments were opposed by Arthur Eddington, who believed that something would inevitably stop the collapse. Both were correct, since a white dwarf more massive than the Chandrasekhar limit will collapse into a neutron star. However, a neutron star above about three solar masses (the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff limit) will itself become unstable against collapse due to similar physics.

In 1939, Robert Oppenheimer and H. Snyder predicted that massive stars could undergo a dramatic gravitational collapse. Black holes could, in principle, be formed in nature. Such objects for a while were called frozen stars since the collapse would be observed to rapidly slow down and become heavily redshifted near the Schwarzschild radius. The mathematics showed that an outside observer would see the surface of the star frozen in time at the instant where it crosses that radius. These hypothetical objects were not the topic of much interest until the late 1960s. Most physicists believed that they were a peculiar feature of the highly symmetric solution found by Schwarzschild, and that objects collapsing in nature would not form black holes.

Interest in black holes was rekindled in 1967 because of theoretical and experimental progress. In 1970, Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose proved that black holes are a generic feature in Einstein's theory of gravity, and cannot be avoided in some collapsing objects.[1] Interest was renewed in the astronomical community with the discovery of pulsars. Shortly thereafter, the expression "black hole" was coined by theoretical physicist John Wheeler,[8] being first used in his public lecture Our Universe: the Known and Unknown on 29 December 1967. The older Newtonian objects of Michell and Laplace are often referred to as "dark stars" to distinguish them from the "black holes" of general relativity.



A (simulated) Black Hole of ten solar masses as seen from a distance of 600 km with the Milky Way in the background (horizontal camera opening angle: 90°). The blurred ring is due to objects whose light must travel close enough to the black hole to suffer gravitational lensing distortion before being observed.
Formation and size
General relativity (as well as most other metric theories of gravity) not only says that black holes can exist, but in fact predicts that they will be formed in nature whenever a sufficient amount of mass gets packed in a given region of space

Answer 10

In spite of some stupid, unfunny answers towards the end, the consensus is John Mitchell in 1784.