I have some knowledge of calculus and differential equations, but what is it about his equations that jumped out? How did he see his equations and decide that this was a legitimate prediction rather than just some constructed “mathy” noise?
In: Mathematics
He didn’t.
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is a series of fiendishly complex equations that describe how space curves in the presence of matter (among other things).
Another scientist solved those equations for a particular set of physical conditions (Karl Schwarzschild) and saw that they predicted an object that has the properties of what we now call a black hole. He sent these results to Einstein to see if he had made a mistake, and Einstein said that the math looked correct.
That’s part of what has made relativity a robust theory: It has made multiple predictions beyond what its original author saw, and most of those predictions have aligned with later observations.
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