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Half of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Roger Penrose, and the other half was jointly awarded by Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez. Because they explored the “blackest” secret in the universe: black holes.
Roger Penrose discovered that general relativity can predict the existence of black holes. And Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez showed supermassive objects discovered at the center of our galaxy.
The Man Who Tested the Black Hole!
Roger Penrose used very clever mathematics to demonstrate the relationship between Einstein’s general theory of relativity and black holes. Einstein himself didn’t really believe that black holes really existed, and so-called black holes not only have supermasses, they can capture everything, even light cannot escape. Sounds weird, right? Physicists believe it too.
Einstein introduced the general theory of relativity that year, completely subverting our concept of time and space. A few weeks after the publication of general relativity, the first theoretical description of the content of black holes appeared. German astronomer Karl Schwarzschild explained by means of a very complicated mathematical formula why objects with supermasses can distort time and space, and now, the size of the black hole’s event horizon is called the “Schwarzschild radius”.
Ten years after Einstein’s death, in January 1965, Penrose proved the existence of black holes and described the properties of black holes in great detail. At the center of the black hole, the laws of nature that we know no longer apply. This insightful article is considered one of the most important contributions to general relativity since Einstein.
- Regarding the long journey of black hole exploration, you can look (up) and (down).
In the center of the Milky Way, there are …
Since the 1990s, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez led the astronomy team to focus on the area at the center of our galaxy, called Sagittarius A *. By mapping the orbit of the bright star in the center of the Milky Way with high resolution, the two teams discovered that a very heavy and invisible object in the center of the region was pulling the stars to spin, causing them to move abnormally fast. . In that area smaller than the solar system, about four million suns have accumulated mass. What exactly is this invisible object? “Super-large black holes” are the only explanation we know of now.
Using the world’s largest astronomical telescope, Genzel and Ghez developed a method of seeing through interstellar gas and dust to observe the center of the Milky Way. They expanded the limits of technology, perfected new technologies, compensated for disturbances caused by Earth’s atmosphere, built unique instruments, and invested in long-term research. His work is very progressive and strongly demonstrated the existence of a supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way.
Although this year’s Physics Prize winners have given us the opportunity to glimpse the “darkest” secrets of the universe, we still have many unknowns about black holes, for example, we do not yet know their internal structure. Testing the current theory of human gravity in extreme conditions near the black hole remains a question that scientists are constantly seeking to answer.
Fight science and support good science!
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