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One might say that the location of the discovery of black holes was "on paper", or perhaps, in the minds of scientists. 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; 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. 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; Bolton's 74-inch reflector was located in Canada; Webster and Murdin's studies were at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in London.

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9y ago

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