by John Traveler

Created on: February 04, 2010   Last Updated: March 24, 2010

They are a phenomenon dating back almost to the beginning of the universe, and yet, black holes are a relatively recent discovery. Their existence was first predicted in the early 1920’s as an abstraction of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. The idea of a gravitational singularity, while obviously valid in mathematical terms, was not one anyone could conceive of in terms of any physical reality.

In 1919, when British astronomer, Sir Arthur Eddington through  observational evidence of gravitational lensing-the effect of light being bent by a massive gravitational source such as starlight by the Sun- provided proof of Einstein's theory of General Relativity, the world of astrophysics was turned on its head. The static view of Newtonian gravitational law became instantly obsolete, being replaced by Einstein's concept of a more dynamic space-time model and gravitational warping.

In 1925, based on Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity, physicist Monsignor Georges Lamatri developed his theory of a primordial atom, an instant of time (a mathematical singularity) when energy was converted into all the observable matter in the universe today. But if energy could be converted into matter than matter could also be turned back into energy. The proof of the pudding came out of the oven on July 16, 1945, with the successful testing of the first atomic bomb. The possibility of a gravitational singularity was no longer a mathematical probability, it was now a very real physical possibility. But what would a gravitational singularity look like?

In 1967, a singularity of human thought occurred bringing together the concept of a mathematical singularity in terms of General Relativity, and the reality of astronomical observation. The occasion was the discovery of very dense stars called pulsars or neutron stars. Astrophysicists soon realized these bizarre phenomena were the remnant of supernovae events (the end of life explosion of super massive stars). In the aftermath of a supernova, without the energy force of fusion to counteract the force of gravity, the star implodes into itself. But this implosion is not instantaneous, it takes time. Just as an ice skater spins faster and faster by drawing his or her arms in towards their body, so a pulsar begins to spin rapidly as matter is drawn to its center mass.

But we can see pulsars through an optical telescope. In fact, they show up even more brightly on radio telescopes because they emit a lot of

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