How did scientists know about the existance of black holes, how they behave etc… long before getting the very first image of one
In: 188
The Einstein field equations predicted their existence and were a consequence of his theory of general relativity. When you solve the equations, which aren’t trivial mind you and if I recall correctly there’s 10 solutions in total of which not all are related to black holes, you end up with four possible solutions for blackholes: a charged rotating black hole, an uncharged rotating black hole, a charged non-rotating black hole and an uncharged non-rotating black hole.
In the theory, the two non-rotating black holes are a prediction but in reality we haven’t found any black holes that fulfill the criteria. The black holes we do know of are of the uncharged rotating type otherwise known as Kerr black holes. We have yet to discover any charged rotating black holes, known as Kerr-Newman black holes however they are useful for studies into stellar mass blackholes.
We don’t expect to ever find non-rotating black holes as from our current understanding all black holes have formed from previously rotating masses like stars. Or in short, we expect all blackholes to have angular momentum.
Another consequence of general relativity is the phenomena called “white holes”. They too are a prediction from general relativity but there is a consensus that they don’t really exist.
**Tl;Dr the math told us they should exist, scientists went looking for them and found them thus confirming their existence.**
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