Word: holing
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hole?the name was not coined by Physicist Wheeler until the 1960s?had far more finality. Since relativity forbids anything to move faster than light, an idea unknown in classic Newtonian physics, escape was impossible. All the energy in the world could not extract an object from a black hole...
...this was, of course, just theorizing, what Einstein called "thought" experiments. Conditions needed to form anything like a neutron star, to say nothing of a black hole, could not be duplicated on earth. Besides, the outbreak of the war forced scientists to turn to more pressing matters. Oppenheimer soon went off to direct the building of the first atomic bomb, and the concept of total gravitational collapse was largely forgotten until after...
...shape and pulls off large amounts of gases. As the particles of gas spiral inward, or biting the black hole in ever tighter circles before entering the event horizon, they collide, compress and heat up. Temperatures within this so-called accretion disk of gases surrounding the black hole reach 10 million degrees C, sending streams of intense X rays into space...
...these instruments find strong evidence of a black hole, how significant would that discovery be? For one thing, proof of the existence of black holes would clear away some of the mystery about both the evolution and the fate of the universe. Scientists generally agree that the universe is expanding, that its galaxies are still rushing outward from the original Big Bang. But they are uncertain about whether the expansion will continue forever. True, gravitational attraction among the galaxies is slowing the outward rush, but unless there is sufficient mass in the universe, the expansion will never completely halt...
...years, often accompanies him to scientific meetings, where he inevitably draws a crowd. He also retains an impish sense of humor. He once offered to send Caltech's Kip Thorne a year's subscription to Penthouse if Cygnus X-l turns out not to be a black hole...