Karl Schwarzschild

Karl Schwarzschild
Karl Schwarzschild (1873–1916)
Born	(1873-10-09)October 9, 1873 Frankfurt am Main
Died	May 11, 1916(1916-05-11) (aged 42) Potsdam
Nationality	German
Fields	Physics Astronomy
Alma mater	Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Doctoral advisor	Hugo von Seeliger
Influenced	Martin Schwarzschild
Signature

Karl Schwarzschild (German: [ˈkaʁl ˈʃvaʁtsʃɪlt]; October 9, 1873 – May 11, 1916) was a German physicist and astronomer. He was also the father of astrophysicist Martin Schwarzschild.

He provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-rotating mass, which he accomplished in 1915, the same year that Einstein first introduced general relativity. The Schwarzschild solution, which makes use of Schwarzschild coordinates and the Schwarzschild metric, leads to a derivation of the Schwarzschild radius, which is the size of the event horizon of a non-rotating black hole.

Schwarzschild accomplished this while serving in the German army during World War I. He died the following year from the autoimmune disease pemphigus, which he developed while at the Russian front. Various forms of the disease particularly affect people of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.

Asteroid 837 Schwarzschilda is named in his honor, as is the large crater Schwarzschild, on the far side of the moon.

Schwarzschild was born in Frankfurt am Main to Jewish parents. His father was active in the business community of the city, and the family had ancestors in the city dating back to the sixteenth century. Karl attended a Jewish primary school until 11 years of age. He was something of a child prodigy, having two papers on binary orbits (celestial mechanics) published before he was sixteen. He studied at Straßburg and Munich, obtaining his doctorate in 1896 for a work on Henri Poincaré's theories.