Oppenheimer’s forgotten astrophysics work explains why black holes exist
<p>The 1930s were a fascinating and contentious time: both on the global stage and for the science of nuclear physics. Economically, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">great depression</a> led to increases in unemployment, <a href="https://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/center/mm/eng/mm_cc_03.htm" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">dramatic dropoffs</a> in global industrial production, foreign trade, per-capita GDP, and a rising tide of fascism. But amidst those geopolitical events, a very small revolution was occurring in fundamental physics: a voyage into the atomic nucleus. All around the world, physicists were putting together the puzzle pieces of nuclear physics, including radioactivity, the discovery of the neutron, the energy potential within all matter of <em>E = mc²</em>, and the physical processes of fusion and fission.</p>
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