Black holes were born

TL;DR

This paper discusses the historical debate between Einstein and Oppenheimer in 1939 regarding whether stars can collapse into black holes or not, highlighting contrasting theoretical perspectives from that era.

Contribution

It provides a historical analysis of the early theoretical arguments about black hole formation by Einstein and Oppenheimer in 1939.

Findings

Einstein argued against star collapse into points due to high particle velocities.

Oppenheimer and Snyder proposed that heavy stars could collapse into infinitely dense points.

The paper clarifies the contrasting early views on black hole formation.

Abstract

In 1939 Albert Einstein wrote a technical article that argued against the possibility that a star can be contracted to a single point: particles making up the star would end up rotating at velocities that were too high. In the same year, Robert Oppenheimer, together with his student Hartland Snyder, drew an apparently exactly opposite conclusion: that when a sufficiently heavy star runs out of nuclear fuel, it will collapse into an infinitely dense point, closed off from the rest of the universe. Both Oppenheimer and Einstein would soon be preoccupied by choices of an altogether different nature; and, again, set out on a different course.