On September 1, 1939—the same day the Nazi tanks crossed the Polish frontier—Robert Oppenheimer and Hartland Snyder published an article in Volume 56 of the Physical Review. In it, the two physicists from North America demonstrated beyond all shadow of a doubt that “When all thermonuclear sources of energy are exhausted a sufficiently heavy star will collapse. Unless it reduces its mass due to fission, rotation or radiation, this contraction will continue indefinitely,” forming the black hole that Schwarzschild had prophesied, capable of crumpling space like a piece of paper and extinguishing
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