Can Oppenheimer be called 'father of black holes'? This paper holds the answer

Scientist J Robert Oppenheimer, whose twentieth-century fame has turned to cinematic acclaim with Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, could very well be described as one of the first proponents who pioneered the study of black holes.

This is because, the 'father of the atom bomb' had, along with his University of California Berkeley colleague Hartland S Snyder, published a pioneering paper in 1939 entitled "On Continued Gravitational Contraction," in which equations of Albert Einstein's general relativity and gravity were used to explain how black holes could be born in the universe.

"Oppenheimer proposed the very first collapse model to describe how a star could collapse into a black hole," said Xavier Calmet, a professor of physics at the University of Sussex in England, while speaking to Space.com.

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"This model explains the formation of black holes as a dynamical astrophysical process, the final stage of the evolution of heavy-enough stars. This model is still being used today,” he added. Calmet stated that the model was recently used by him in a paper which described the collapse of black holes when taking into account quantum gravity.

"This model is very significant because it is analytically solvable — solving the equations can be done with pen and paper and does not require numerical work. All the physics is thus easily trackable," he stated. "Yet, despite its simplicity and maybe even crudeness, it is complex enough to describe many of the features of a collapsing star,” he added.

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Oppenheimer vs Einstein

At a time when Oppenheimer and Snyder were working on the paper which was heavily dependent on the 1915 theory of general relativity, the father of the theory, Einstein, was completing the research which was aimed at proving that black holes do not exist.

However, Oppenheimer and his colleagues are believed to be the first scientists who truly understood the black hole's physical birth.

Three years after publishing the paper, Oppenheimer travelled to Los Alamos where he cemented his place in history and in the public's perception. However, despite his success with atomic bombs, many scientists still like to remember him as the father of black holes.

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"Oppenheimer made very significant contributions to black hole physics and physics as a whole," Calmet stated. "While the general public may associate his name with the bomb and the Manhattan Project, his contributions to physics and astrophysics are well appreciated by the scientific community. He was one of the leading physicists during his lifetime and was extremely influential, and his seminal work is still relevant today,” he added.

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