Session D3 - The Discovery of Black Holes.
INVITED session, Saturday afternoon, May 01
Plaza E, Adam's Mark Hotel
The development of black hole astrophysics is one of the rare instances in astronomy where theory has pointed the way for observers. While speculations about "dark stars" date back more than 200 years, the existence of astronomical objects resulting from the unchecked collapse of large masses was first seriously foreshadowed in 1931 by Chandrasekhar's derivation of an upper mass limit for white dwarf stars, and predicted outright in 1939 by Oppenheimer and his group. Acceptance of these ideas was delayed by WW II, by a complete lack of observational evidence and by resistance to the notion that matter could be compressed without limit. The dicovery of quasars in 1963 marked a turning point, after which the theory developed rapidly, and by the early 1970's had attained a remarkable comleteness and formal perfection.