Nobel Prize for Physics

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More About the Discovery

• Penrose has been awarded the prize for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity, while Genzel and Ghez have been awarded the prize for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the centre of our galaxy.
• Penrose’s work has shown that black holes are a direct consequence of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
• Gravity also shapes space and influences the passage of time. It is this gravity, which is so great inside a black hole that is able to bend space and slow down time.
• Penrose used Einstein’s general theory of relativity in order to prove that the process of formation of black holes is a stable one. He proved that black holes exist and described them in detail back in 1965, ten years after Einstein died.
• Genzel and Ghez, on the other hand, have discovered that an invisible and an extremely heavy object governs the stars’ orbit at the centre of the Milky Way.
• This extremely heavy object has the mass equivalent to 4 million solar masses and is packed into an area about the size of our solar system.
• Essentially, their work tells us that at the centre of our galaxy the Milky Way lies an invisible supermassive object, of which a black hole provides a reasonable explanation. Physicists have been suspecting the existence of a black hole at the centre of our galaxy for over 50 years now.
• In order to see through to the middle of the Milky Way, Genzel and Ghez worked on developing methods and used some of the world’s largest telescopes.
• The existence of a black hole at the centre of our galaxy is what the physicists believe is what pulls a jumble of stars, causing them to rush around at high speeds.

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