Mercury,
March/April 2004 Table of Contents
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Illustration
courtesy of CXC and A. Hobart |
by
Catherine Garland
The
evidence for the existence of black holes is overwhelming, and these
bizarre objects—likely ranging in size from teeny to titanic—may
even lurk inside the debris of particle collisions in an eagerly
awaited particle accelerator.
A black
hole is a region of space where the force of gravity is so strong
that nothing, not even light, can escape. Einstein’s own Theory
of General Relativity, formulated in 1915, predicted that such extraordinary
regions could exist when, for example, massive stars collapsed.
However, such things seemed so peculiar that Einstein did not believe
in them. It did not seem to him, and to many other prominent scientists
at the time, that the Universe should behave in such a strange way.
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