The Prediction and Interpretation of Singularities and Black Holes: From Einstein and Schwarzschild to Penrose and Wheeler

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Lehmkuhl, Dennis
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Lehmkuhl, Dennis
author_facet Lehmkuhl, Dennis
contents The Schwarzschild solution was the first exact solution to Einstein's 1915 field equations, found by Karl Schwarzschild as early as 1916. And yet, physicists, mathematicians and philosophers have struggled for decades with the interpretation of the Schwarzschild solution and the two singularities appearing in it when it is written in polar coordinates. This article distinguishes between eight different ways in which the two singularities have been interpreted between 1916 and the late 1960s, when Penrose's first singularity theorem shed new and lasting light on the interpretation of the Schwarzschild solution.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_00034
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Prediction and Interpretation of Singularities and Black Holes: From Einstein and Schwarzschild to Penrose and Wheeler
Lehmkuhl, Dennis
History and Philosophy of Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
The Schwarzschild solution was the first exact solution to Einstein's 1915 field equations, found by Karl Schwarzschild as early as 1916. And yet, physicists, mathematicians and philosophers have struggled for decades with the interpretation of the Schwarzschild solution and the two singularities appearing in it when it is written in polar coordinates. This article distinguishes between eight different ways in which the two singularities have been interpreted between 1916 and the late 1960s, when Penrose's first singularity theorem shed new and lasting light on the interpretation of the Schwarzschild solution.
title The Prediction and Interpretation of Singularities and Black Holes: From Einstein and Schwarzschild to Penrose and Wheeler
topic History and Philosophy of Physics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00034