On September 1, 1939, the same day Germany invaded Poland, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his student Hartland Snyder published a five-page paper that would help lay the mathematical foundations of black-hole physics.<\/p>\n
Their paper, \u201c,\u201d published in Physical Review, used Einstein\u2019s general theory of relativity to show how a sufficiently massive star could collapse under its own gravity, contracting beyond its gravitational radius and becoming inaccessible to distant observers.<\/p>\n
It was a remarkable theoretical result. Yet its arrival coincided with the outbreak of World War II, and the discovery attracted little immediate attention.<\/p>\n
Oppenheimer would soon turn his attention to nuclear physics and the wartime effort that would eventually lead him to direct the Los Alamos laboratory. He never published another paper in astrophysics.<\/p>\n
One of his most remarkable theoretical contributions was eclipsed by the very war that would ultimately define his career.<\/p>\n
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#physics #oppemheimer<\/p>\n