Yet there was something deeply strange about Schwarzschild’s results. They worked flawlessly for an ordinary star, around which space curved softly, just as Einstein predicted, and the body of the star remained suspended in the centre of a depression, like a pair of children resting inside a cloth hammock. The problem arose when too much mass was concentrated in a very small area, as occurs when a giant star exhausts its fuel and begins to collapse. According to Schwarzschild’s calculations, in such a case, space-time would not simply bend; it would tear apart. The star would go on compressing
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