A Brief History of Black Holes

It has frequently been alleged by theoretical physicists Newton’s theory of gravitation either predicts or adumbrates the black hole. This claim stems from a suggestion originally made by John Michell in 1784 that if a body is sufficiently massive, “all light emitted from such a body would be made to return to it by its own power of gravity”. The great French scientist, P. S. de Laplace, made a similar conjecture in the eighteenth century and undertook a mathematical analysis of the matter. However, contrary to popular and frequent expert opinion, the Michell-Laplace dark body, as it is actually called, is not a black hole at all. The reason why is quite simple. For a gravitating body we identify an escape velocity.

This is a velocity that must be achieved by an object to enable it to leave the surface of the host body and travel out to infinity, where it comes to rest.
Therefore, it will not fall back towards the host. It is said to have escaped the host. At velocities lower than the escape velocity, the object will leave the surface of the host, travel out to a finite distance where it momentarily comes to rest, then fall back to the host. Consequently, a suitably located observer will see the travelling object twice, once on its journey outward and once on its return trajectory. If the initial velocity is greater than or equal to the escape velocity, an observer located outside the host, anywhere on the trajectory of the travelling object, will see the object just once, as it passes by on its outward unidirectional journey. It escapes the host. Now, if the escape velocity is the speed of light, this means that light can leave the host and travel out to infinity and come to rest there. It escapes the host. Therefore, all observers located anywhere on the trajectory will see the light once, as it passes by on its outward journey. However, if the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, then light will travel out to a finite distance, momentarily come to rest, and fall back to the host, in which case a suitably located observer will see the light twice, once as it passes by going out and once upon its return. Furthermore, an observer located at a sufficiently large and finite distance from the host will not see the light, because it does not reach him. To such an observer the host is dark: a Michell-Laplace dark body. But this does not mean that the light cannot leave the surface of the host. It can, as testified by the closer observer. Now, in the case of the black hole, it is claimed by the relativists that no object and no light can even leave the event horizon (the “surface”) of the black hole.

Therefore, an observer, no matter how close to the event horizon, will see nothing. Contrast this with the escape velocity for the Michell-Laplace dark body where, if the escape velocity is the speed of light, all observers located on the trajectory will see the light as it passes out to infinity where it comes to rest, or when the escape velocity is greater than the speed of light, so that a suitably close observer will see the light twice, once when it goes out and once when it returns. This is completely opposite to the claims for the black hole. Thus, there is no such thing as an escape velocity for a black hole, and so the Michell-Laplace dark body is not a black hole. Those who claim the Michell-Laplace dark body a black hole have not properly understood the meaning of escape velocity and have consequently been misleading as to the nature of the alleged event horizon of a black hole. It should also be noted that nowhere in the argument for the Michell-Laplace dark body is there gravitational collapse to a point-mass, as is required for the black hole.