When did hawking discover black holes?

Answer 1

Black holes, by their very nature, resist direct observation and cannot be "seen" in the conventional sense. But they were hypothesized long ago, and the ideas of what they might be like and how they could behave evolved in time. Einstein himself believed that they could not form, but we now have far too much evidence to ignore their existence.

The first black hole discovered is sometimes credited to the 1972 observation of Bolton, Webster and Murdin. It is designated Cygnus X-1. There is still some debate, though, due to the differential gravities of the "black hole" and its companion. (The companion is more massive than the "black hole" near it.)

Other observations, particularly using X-ray evidence, have given us many more (and much better) candidates. Sagittarius A is the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. The orbits of nearby stars as plotted by optical telescopes point clearly to a very massive but invisible object that directs their motion. Use the link below to review what is generally accepted regarding these most curious astrophysical phenomena.

Answer 2

Steven Hawking did not and has not discovered a Black Hole and was not the first to propose their existence.

Black holes cannot be observed directly.

Einstein's general theory of relativity (published in 1916) predicted just the kinds of object inferred by the term 'Black Hole' . . . and the first object to be generally recognized as a black hole is the X-ray binary star Cygnus X-1. Its effect on its companion star suggested as early as 1971 that it must be a compact object with a mass too high for it to be a neutron star. That was 2 years after the American astronomer John Wheeler coined the term 'black hole'.

Answer 3

Black holes were described theoretically before evidence for their existence was collected from astronomical observations. The philosopher and geologist John Michell in the late 18th century described what would happen to infalling matter approaching a body of a certain mass where it had sufficient acceleration from gravity to approach the speed of light, and proposing the idea that light theoretically emitted by it would be unable to escape - so basically he had described a black hole; but it wasn't until Einstein's General theory of Relativity (1915) that the framework of gravitation was in place and the reality of black holes could be described mathematically. Building upon Einstein's work, the effect of gravity on space was much better understood and solutions to his field equations yielded much more accurate models of black holes' properties and reinforced the theoretical evidence for their existence. The solution for a non-rotating black hole was discovered by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916. Observational evidence came later, but because black holes cannot emit light, the evidence was indirect, in the form of certain x-ray sources, the relativistic jets of quasars or galactic nuclei, gravitational lensing, and the orbital motions of stars near massive unobserved bodies. Credit for discovery of the first strong black hole candidate through astronomical observation in an x-ray binary system (Cygnus X-1) goes to Bolton, Murdin, and Webster in 1972.

Answer 4

Astronomer Karl Schwarzschild is said to have been the only to discover black holes in 1916. Back in the 1700s, it was already theorized, but there was not much to back it up with that later. With large telescopes

Answer 5

Stephen hawkings didn'd really discover black holes.

Answer 6

1963