I was watching a video about black holes, and when they mentioned that Einstein proved black holes exist with maths, it hit me.
I’ve never asked myself that question, how do numbers tell you that something exist in outer space and what to expect from it? especially things that we never knew they existed in the first place (exp black/white holes) ?
In: 407
The math alone didn’t “prove” the existence of black holes. What it did was help provide a framework for making testable predictions.
If someone did the math that proved that unicorns made of diamonds were orbiting around the sun, you’d naturally be skeptical. But if you found sparkling light sources orbiting the sun at the right distance and spectroscopy (analysis of the light) showed the presence of carbon crystals, that’d be stronger evidence.
Point is, the math let astronomers and astrophysicists know what to look for and it explained a host of other previously anomalous events. Sure, some people won’t be satisfied until they see one with their own eyes and they’ll spin endless amounts of pseudoscience, but their guessing doesn’t make any testable predictions.
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