Schwarzschild solves the field equations for a point mass
Working at the Russian front, Karl Schwarzschild found the exact vacuum solution for the spacetime outside a spherical mass and sent it to Einstein, who presented it to the Prussian Academy; it was published in the Academy's proceedings in 1916. The solution contains a radius at which its coordinate description breaks down - the quantity now called the Schwarzschild radius - but neither Schwarzschild nor his contemporaries read this as a boundary of no return. Schwarzschild died in May of the same year.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Schwarzschild radius · physical threshold · not located
- Karl Schwarzschild · person · Germany · not located
- The event horizon · concept · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Ueber das Gravitationsfeld eines Massenpunktes nach der Einsteinschen Theorie
The first exact solution of the Einstein field equations for the vacuum outside a spherical mass, containing the radius now named for its author. V55 VERIFICATION BASIS: the paper was NOT consulted in this session - WebFetch was refused by the network egress proxy for every host attempted and the WebSearch budget was exhausted before authoring began. Title, venue and page range are given from the author's recall of a canonical citation and must be checked.
Sitzungsberichte der Koeniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin · 1916 · Partly verified
Karl Schwarzschild, Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1916 (commonly cited at pages 189-196)
Recorded on Schwarzschild radius
Related
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