German Physicist Research Articles

Review on Li-Fi: an advancement in wireless network communication with the application of solar power

Light Fidelity, commonly referred to as Li-Fi is a technology that was introduced by a German physicist called Herald Hass. This technology in its own uniqueness considers the use of light (Light Emitting Diode, LED to be specific) as its medium of delivering high speed communication that complies with standard IEEE 802.15.7 bidirectional communication standard. This optical means of communications is also known as visible light communication. It is safer when compared with Wi-Fi network. This paper will focus on Li-Fi applications, comparison with existing technologies like Wi-Fi and the inclusion of an alternative source of power i.e., solar power, as a means of effectively optimizing on the availability and accessibility of the benefits in places where erratic or total power outage is a common trend.

Principle of Constancy and Finiteness of the Speed of Gravitational Interaction and Dark Matter.

It can be shown that the anomalously high rates of rotation of the outer regions of galaxies follow from the constancy and finiteness of the rate of gravitational interaction, which is equal to the speed of light in accordance with general relativity of A. Einstein. Since the speed of propagation of the gravitational interaction is constant and equal to the speed of light, then for compensation of lag of the gravitational field, an increase in the mass velocity will always be used, since the metric tensor according to general relativity of A. Einstein is depends on to both geometry and kinematics of masses.

Physics and human rights

“In 1989 I had the privilege to travel to the International Center for Theoretical Physics at Trieste, Italy. Besides other things, I watched in the Italian television how the China government sent war tanks against the students in the Tiananmen Square. When I returned to Cuba, I discovered that all the Cuban media, totally controlled by the government, lied about what happened in Tiananmen.”The opening quote comes from the personal website of Texas Tech physicist Luis Grave de Peralta. The Cuban government’s whitewashing of the Tiananmen Square Massacre spurred him to resign from the Communist Party of Cuba, an action that cost him his job at the University of Santiago de Cuba. Out of work, he wrote a book critical of the Cuban government, an action that caused him to be sentenced in 1992 to 13 years in prison. Intervention on his behalf by the US National Academy of Sciences, Amnesty International, and Congressman Bill Richardson led to his release and expulsion to the US after he had spent nearly four years behind bars. At first, the Cuban government denied exit visas to his wife and two sons. They joined him in the US in 2008.On page 48 you’ll find a feature-length report by Physics Today’s Toni Feder on physics in Cuba. Despite economic hardship, physicists there do world-class research. A crucial element is Cuban physicists’ professional and economic ties to colleagues abroad. Strengthening those relationships is important. I’m glad that the American Physical Society and other professional organizations are working with that goal in mind. APS grants Cuban physicists free access to Physical Review Letters and its other journals.International scientific collaboration is virtuous, even with physicists who live under regimes that violate their citizens’ human rights. Two years ago, Feder wrote about a collaboration between geophysicists from France, the UK, and the US and a team from arguably the most politically oppressed country on Earth: North Korea. Brokered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the collaboration sought to evaluate the threat of an eruption by Mount Paektu, a volcano on North Korea’s border with China (see Physics Today, February 2016, page 20). On a boat in Russia in 1928 were (from left) Paul Dirac, Yakov Frenkel, and Alfred Landé. (Courtesy of the AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.) PPT|High resolutionShould physicists discount human rights when weighing international collaborations? We are all entitled to set our own personal political limits, as Paul Dirac evidently did. Known for his single-minded devotion to theoretical physics, Dirac was also an enthusiastic traveler, especially to the Soviet Union. In his biography of Dirac, The Strangest Man (2009), Graham Farmelo describes the warm and fruitful interactions that Dirac had with Igor Tamm, Peter Kapitza, and other Russian physicists. Farmelo also noted that Dirac was likely ignorant of Joseph Stalin’s mass-murderous collectivization campaign of 1928–30 and his Great Purge of 1937–38.But there were limits to Dirac’s internationalism. To converse and collaborate with German physicists, Dirac had learned German. In 1933, after Hitler came to power and promptly began persecuting Jews and others, he vowed never to speak the language again. Section:ChooseTop of page <<CITING ARTICLES© 2018 American Institute of Physics.

History meets drama in a play about German physicists

History meets drama in a play about German physicists

The Sense and Reference of Sound; or, Walter Pater’s Kinky Literalism

David Sweeney Coombs, “The Sense and Reference of Sound; or, Walter Pater’s Kinky Literalism” (pp. 487–514) This essay explores the erotic possibilities of literal reading by strategically fetishizing the recurring figure of harmony in Walter Pater’s essay “The School of Giorgione” (1877) and his other post-Renaissance writings. I read Pater’s invocations of harmony literally with help from the scientific acoustics of the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz, which achieved immense popularity in Britain at just the moment that Pater made his famous declaration that all art aspires to the conditions of music. Both Pater and Helmholtz understood perception as an act of reading bodily sensations in which reference—our attention to the objects we infer to be present in the world around us—constantly threatens to overwhelm our awareness of the sensations themselves. In his work on acoustics, however, Helmholtz singled out musical harmony as an experience uniquely susceptible to the mental effort to distinguish discrete sensations during the act of perception. Oscillating between sense and reference, harmony exemplifies the rhetorical logic of what Pater calls literal metaphors—figures whose figurative significance can be fully accessed only by taking them literally. The most emblematic of Pater’s literal metaphors is the Paterian figure itself, at once human form and trope. To take Paterian figures literally, this essay suggests, is to reimagine literal reading as a form of kink—a fetishizing of the sensory forces through which a figure affects and dominates us.

X-RAY RADIATION FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT

The history of the discovery of electromagnetic radiation, later called X-rays, by German physicist V.K. Rontgenare is stated. The main properties of X-rays are presented. The main methods of medical X-ray diagnostics are analyzed, the areas of their application are described, the main advantages and disadvantages are indicated. The paper shows that the development of medical diagnostic equipment is carried out at the present stage, mainly, by using information (digital) technologies. The main concepts of the application of X-ray radiation for medicinal purposes and the stages of the development of X-ray therapeutic methods are considered.

Toward Designing a Li-Fi-Based Hierarchical IoT Architecture

Current wireless communication technologies, such as wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) and Bluetooth, use radio waves as the basic medium in transferring information. Even though these technologies are widely spread, the need of exploring alternatives to transmit data wirelessly and more efficiently is a must. The reason behind that relies on the current limitations of the radio frequency (RF) band, which include overcrowding and interference with other RF applications. To explore alternatives, much research has been conducted to prove the possibility of using visible light as a wireless medium for transferring data. As a result, a new technology was presented by a German physicist Harald Haas, called light-fidelity (Li-Fi), which is a wireless technology that utilizes visible light as a communication medium instead of using the basic radio wave. Recently, Li-Fi technology has attracted the research community. Various studies have been conducted to improve the technology. However, there is still a noticeable need to support the research field due to the modernity of the technology. Hence, this paper presents an extensive survey of the previous studies and projects conducted on the technology, besides multiple leading companies working on the manufacture of Li-Fi-compatible products. In addition, a Li-Fi-based IoT architecture is proposed in this paper, which relies on the collection of data from multiple environments, where Li-Fi is installed. Li-Fi-generated data are analyzed and processed to make intelligent decisions to enhance services in many sectors.

Optical Cooling of CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dots Embedded in PMMA

In 1929, the German physicist Peter Pringsheim proposed that anti-Stokes emission can lead to the cooling of bulk matter. Anti-Stokes emission results in photons of shorter wavelength (higher photon energy) than that of the exciting light due to thermal absorption. In solids, the thermal energy is mostly due to the vibrational modes (phonons) of the lattice. Thus, using lasers to cool a solid, one has to irradiate a sample with laser light in the red tail of the absorption spectrum. The material to be cooled would then absorb a photon and absorb extra energy from a phonon to emit a blue-shifted photon of higher energy. By removing these phonons, the material is cooled. Today, this technique is known as laser cooling of solids or optical refrigeration. It can be used to achieve an all-solid-state cryocooler that is compact, contains no moving parts, has a high reliability, and does not require the use of cryogenic fluids. Laser cooling also allows for the possibility of portable lasers that require no or smaller external cooling systems because the pump wavelength can be adjusted such that spontaneous anti-Stokes luminescence cooling compensates for the stimulated quantum defect heating. A thermally balanced laser such as this would not suffer from thermal defocusing or heat damage; therefore, such solid-state-lasers could achieve higher output powers. Unfortunately, for cooling to occur in solids, the quantum efficiency of the material must be high and nearly all the anti-Stokes luminescence must leave the material without being reabsorbed. Recently, much research has been performed on rare-earth ions for laser cooling. However, the cooling efficiency of rare-earth ions approaches zero as the temperature decreases. As a result, they have a theoretical cooling limit about 90 K. On the other hand, semiconductors provide more efficient pump light absorption, the potential for lower temperatures of 10 K, and the ability to directly integrate the material into electronic and photonic devices. This coupled with the strong electron-phonon coupling of Group II-VI semiconductors and core-shell quantum dot structure minimizing the reabsorption of the anti-Stokes luminescence, makes direct bandgap semiconductors viable laser cooling candidate materials. Owing to the possibility for near-unity quantum efficiency of CdSe/ZnS, we have chosen to investigate CdSe/ZnS quantum dots for laser cooling applications. Recently, we have utilized photothermal deflection techniques to show that CdSe/ZnS can be cooled at a microscopic level. Moreover, we developed a new photothermal technique that is capable of discerning heating or cooling inside a material using nothing but the probe deflection thereby eliminating the need for a Stokes and anti-Stokes laser. Using the information gained from the photothermal results, we have begun to cool CdSe/ZnS polymers. This talk will go over the cooling results as well as our new photothermal technique.

Who was Karl Ferdinand Braun?

The 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics was shared between Guglielmo Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their contribution to the development of wireless telegraphy. The former, Italian-born but living mostly in England, was one of the most famous inventors of his time; the latter was a German physicist almost unknown beyond national borders. The members of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences decided to divide the Nobel Prize between these two men, but the choice may have been conditioned by external factors, and not limited to merely scientific merit.

The Next Generation of Wireless Communication Using Li-Fi (Light Fidelity) Technology

Today scenario almost all the peoples are using internet to fulfill their task through a wired or wireless network. The speed of internet is an important issue and everyone be it business, organizations, entrepreneurs, and institutions is thrust for getting correct information at the correct time and correct place. Then need rapid internet connectivity, technology and huge spectrum of channels. The wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) gives you the speed of 150 Mbps, according to standards of 1EEE 802.11n, but not sufficient to fulfill the necessity of required users over the network. In order to remove this deficiency of Wi-Fi, a new technology is developed by German physicist, professor Harald Haas is known as Li-Fi. The Li-Fi is a wireless communication system in which light is used as a carrier signal instead of traditional radio frequency as in Wi-Fi. Li-Fi is a technology that utilizes a light emitting diode to transmit data wirelessly. It uses a bidirectional and the wireless mode of communication using light. In this paper, I am aiming to demonstrate a close-up view about Li-Fi Technology. This technology we can obtain the data rate greatly speedier than 10 Mbps, which is a lot greater than our LAN (Local Area Network). Li-Fi is very remunerative over Wi-Fi as it uses VLC by which we can make use of the maximum 60 GHz spectrum. Li-Fi confer transmission of data via LED bulb whose intensity change in an excessively faster speed that it could not be able to be explored by the human eye. Li-Fi is confined to the illuminated area, endue a tremendously controllable environment. The signals cannot travel via walls and are fully secure essentially disassemble the threat of data being hacked remotely.

Edison Etheroscope

Inventive American scientist Thomas A. Edison (1847–1931) designed an etheroscope in 1875 (Fig. 1). The device detected etheric forces that were serendipitously radiating wirelessly from his cable-requiring telegraph devices. Edison coined his ether-based terms because the word ether had long designated the light-carrying fabric of space (that is, the luminiferous ether). The word similarly designated volatile chemical substances that tended to fly off into space, such as the celebrated ether championed by American anesthesia pioneer William TG Morton (1819-1868). There was initial skepticism of Edison's new force. For instance, The New York Times playfully proposed, “He might as well call it the chloral-hydrate or the nitrous-oxide force.” [1] Anonymous New York Times. December 3, 1875: 4 Google Scholar The phenomenon was verified by German physicist Heinrich R. Hertz (1857-1894) in 1886 and is now called radio. [2] Gardiol F.E. About the beginnings of wireless. Int J Microw Wirel Technol. 2011; 3: 391-398https://doi.org/10.1017/S1759078711000444 Crossref Scopus (3) Google Scholar Edison collaborated with American neurologist George M. Beard (1839-1883) in hopes of medical applications of etheric force. [3] Simon L. Chapter 5. Sparks. in: Dark Light: Electricity and Anxiety from the Telegraph to the X-Ray. Harcourt, Orlando, FL2004: 123-142 Google Scholar Edison's radiofrequency electrical work constituted a basic scientific step toward radiofrequency medical devices such as those of electrocautery, ultrasonography, and magnetic resonance imaging.

Henry Rudolf Hertz (the 160th anniversary of his birth)

A brief overview of the main achievements of Heinrich Hertz, an outstanding German physicist, has been shown to prove to the whole world the existence of electromagnetic waves. Biographical information and details of Hertz's education, his work in Hermann Helmholtz's laboratory, as well as interesting facts from his life and work are given. These include the unique experimental work performed by Hertz, a professor at the Higher Technical School in Karlsruhe, using the emitter of electromagnetic waves - the Vibrator - and their own design receiver. Along with James Maxwell and Oliver Heaviside, Hertz can be considered the founder of electrodynamics: he received electromagnetic waves predicted by Maxwell's theory, showed their identity with light waves and gave a classical calculation of the electromagnetic radiation of the simplest vibrator. Hertz's discoveries formed the basis for the theory of radiation of radio waves and methods for calculating antennas, and became the basis for the birth of the era of wireless communications, radio and television.

GODS AND GHOST-LIGHT: ANCIENT EGYPT, ELECTRICITY, AND X-RAYS

In 1892 the celebrated physicistand chemist William Crookes commented on the existence of “an almost infinite range of ethereal vibrations or electrical rays,” which he believed could revolutionize telegraphic communications (174). A few years later, and aided by Crookes's experiments with vacuums, the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen successfully produced X-rays, a hitherto unrecorded form of electromagnetic radiation, which he tantalizingly described as “a new kind of invisible light” (Röntgen 413; Warner 256). Crookes was quick to speculate as to “the possibility of links between roentgen rays and the cerebral ganglia,” that an undiscovered organ in the brain might be “capable of transmitting and receiving . . . electrical rays” (Lyons 105; Crookes 176). X-rays, he thought, might prove a psychic counterpart to higher wavelength radio waves, allowing the transmission of messages telepathically rather than telegraphically, and even communication with the world of the spirits (Lyons 105). Crookes theorized that the parapsychological was intimately entwined with the findings of contemporary physics, occupying different zones of the same electromagnetic spectrum. An ardent Spiritualist, he believed that the ether, the “impalpable, invisible entity, by which all space is supposed to be filled” and which contained countless “channels of communication” also sustained “ghost-light . . . invisible to the naked eye” and acted as a medium that allowed “ethereal bodies to rise up” (Crookes 174; Warner 253–56). In other words, the matter through which light and electrical signals passed was envisaged as the same substance which allowed the spirits to fluctuate between visible and invisible forms. These links between the electromagnetic field and the occult, endorsed by Crookes and certain other members of his circles such as the Society for Psychical Research, anticipated turn-of-the-century associations between electricity, radiation and ancient Egypt which, through its reputation as the birthplace of magic, was central to Victorian conceptions of the supernatural.

Calculation of the equivalent resistance and impedance of the cylindrical network based on recursion-transform method

A classic problem in circuit theory first studied by German physicist Kirchhoff more than 170 years ago is the computation of resistances in resistor networks. Nowadays, resistor network has been an important model in the fields of natural science and engineering technology, but it is very difficult to calculate the equivalent resistance between two arbitrary nodes in an arbitrary resistor network. In 2004, Wu F Y formulated a Laplacian matrix method and derived expressions for the two-point resistance in arbitrary finite and infinite lattices in terms of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Laplacian matrix, and the resistance results obtained by Laplacian matrix method is composed of double sums. The weakness of the Laplacian matrix approach is that it depends on the two matrices along two orthogonal directions. In 2011, Tan Z Z created the recursion-transform (RT) method, which can resolve the resistor network with arbitrary boundary. Using the RT method to compute the equivalent resistance relies on just one matrix along one direction, and the resistance is expressed by single summation. In the present paper, we investigate the equivalent resistance and complex impedance of an arbitrary mn cylindrical network by the RT method. Firstly, based on the network analysis, a recursion relation between the current distributions on three successive vertical lines is established through a matrix equation. In order to obtain the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the matrix, and the general solution of the matrix equation, we then perform a diagonalizing transformation on the driving matrix.Secondly, we derive a recursion relation between the current distributions on the boundary, and construct some particular solutions of the matrix equation. Finally by using the matrix equation of inverse transformation, we obtain the analytical solution of the branch current, and gain the equivalent resistance formula along the axis of the arbitrary mn cylindrical network, which consists of the characteristic root and expressed by only single summation. As applications, several new formulae of equivalent resistances in the semi-infinite and infinite cases are given. These formulae are compared with those in other literature, meanwhile an interesting new identity of trigonometric function is discovered. At the end of the article, the equivalent impedance of the mn cylindrical RLC network is also treated, where the equivalent impedance formula is also given.

Energy Distribution of Radiation Emitted by a Black Body - Independent of Probability

Background/Objective: To demonstrate that the formula for Energy distribution of radiation emitted from the cavity of a black-body, derived by German physicist Max Planck in the year 1900, has an alternative explanation independent of probability. Method: Energy released by radiations emitted from the cavity of a black-body, is compared with the energy released from an incandescent electric bulb. Electrical energy added to the bulb is envisaged to transform into energy-sphere that breaks-up into small packets of energy akin to radioactive decay of matter, and generates electromagnetic radiations causing brightness. Finding: Conjoining the quantization of energy and the technique of radioactive decay, a formula is derived for the brilliance of the incandescent bulb. The formula, thus derived, is found to be identical to the formula derived by Max Planck. This finding leads us to a unique outcome that the assumption of oscillators inside the cavity of black-body is not a requisite for deriving the formula as suggested by Max Planck, and believed till date. Elimination of oscillators also makes Boltzmann’s statistical method, which was utilized by Max Planck in his derivation, irrelevant to the formula, thereby making it independent of probability. Use of probability in physics leads to uncertainties and weirdness which is evident in quantum physics. This technique eliminates the probability from this basic formula of quantum physics and introduces a distinctive mode of generation of electromagnetic radiations from energy-spheres. Application/Improvements: This technique can further be explored and applied in ascertaining the behavior of electrons and other sub-atomic particles without the usage of probability. Keywords: Black-body, Probability, Quantization, Quantum Physics, Radiation

Terra Nova, Tamera, and the Healing of Love: Viable Pathway for a Planetary Tikkun?

Terra Nova, Tamera, and the Healing of Love: Viable Pathway for a Planetary Tikkun?

Laser Cooling of CdSe/ZnS Quantum Dots

In 1929, the German physicist Peter Pringsheim proposed that anti-Stokes emission can lead to the cooling of bulk matter. Anti-Stokes emission results in photons of shorter wavelength (higher photon energy) than that of the exciting light due to thermal absorption. In solids, the thermal energy is mostly due to the vibrational modes (phonons) of the lattice. Thus, using lasers to cool a solid, one has to irradiate a sample with laser light in the red tail of the absorption spectrum. The material to be cooled would then absorb a photon and absorb extra energy from a phonon to emit a blue-shifted photon of higher energy. By removing these phonons, the material is cooled. Today, this technique is known as laser cooling of solids or optical refrigeration. It can be used to achieve an all-solid-state cryocooler that is compact, contains no moving parts, has a high reliability, and does not require the use of cryogenic fluids. Laser cooling also allows for the possibility of portable lasers that require no or smaller external cooling systems because the pump wavelength can be adjusted such that spontaneous anti-Stokes luminescence cooling compensates for the stimulated quantum defect heating. A thermally balanced laser such as this would not suffer from thermal defocusing or heat damage; therefore, such solid-state-lasers could achieve higher output powers. Unfortunately, for cooling to occur in solids, the quantum efficiency of the material must be high and nearly all the anti-Stokes luminescence must leave the material without being reabsorbed. Recently, much research has been performed on rare-earth ions for laser cooling. However, the cooling efficiency of rare-earth ions approaches zero as the temperature decreases. As a result, they have a theoretical cooling limit of 100 K. On the other hand, semiconductors provide more efficient pump light absorption, the potential for lower temperatures of 10 K, and the ability to directly integrate the material into electronic and photonic devices. This coupled with the strong electron-phonon coupling of Group II-VI semiconductors and core-shell quantum dot structure minimizing the reabsorption of the anti-Stokes luminescence, makes direct bandgap semiconductors viable laser cooling candidate materials. Owing to the possibility for near-unity quantum efficiency of CdSe/ZnS, we have chosen to investigate CdSe/ZnS quantum dots for laser cooling applications. Recently, we have determined that the optimum laser excitation wavelength for CdSe/ZnS anti-Stokes emission is 647 nm. This wavelength indicates that the second-harmonic longitudinal optical phonon (2LO) is strongly coupled to the laser photons. Using this wavelength, we were able to cool a 4-mL colloidal solution containing 2 mg of CdSe/ZnS per 1 mL of toluene by 2.3°C from room temperature. However, it took several hours to cool the liquid owing to the convectional cooling produced by the small-diameter laser beam, which was only cooling 3% of the volume of the solution. To reduce this problem, we added a beam expander to irradiate the entire sample area and speed up the cooling process. In addition, we split the beam to simultaneously measure the changes in temperature of CdSe/ZnS colloid and of pure toluene. Photothermal techniques have also been explored to accurately measure the temperature of the CdSe/ZnS material. In addition, polymer hosts have been prepared for the CdSe/ZnS quantum dots.

Razvoj radiologije na Slovenskem

Few discoveries in the history of science brought such significant progress as did the discovery of X-rays by the German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in 1895. The finding did not only bring a revolution to the field of medicine but also to many other technical branches. With technological progress in the 20th century, medical roentgenology swiftly developed. The first significant step forward was the introduction of contrast media followed by others including computerised image data management and digital techniques. Medical diagnostics embraced other imaging methods based on other types of energy such as ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. The beginnings of roentgenology in the Slovene Lands go back to the year 1900. Bone fractures were the first to be imaged, followed by thoracic imaging and contrast imaging of the gastrointestinal tract. The use of roentgenology spread significantly after World War I, with the implementation in the following years of X-ray machines in all Slovenian hospitals, some spas and sanatoria. Gradually the need for an independent scientific institution emerged, which led to the establishment of the Roentgenological Institute for Slovenia and Istria in Ljubljana in 1923. At the same time radiology was developing also by other Slovenian hospitals.In the 1950s, Slovenian roentgenology increasingly stayed in touch with contemporary international development, updated its equipment and introduced new methods. The modern concept of centralised radiological management, comparable with that of modern European institutions, was realised in Ljubljana in 1973 after the relocation of the Radiological Institute to the new facilities at the Ljubljana University Medical Centre. The first computer tomography machine was installed in 1980, the first ultrasound machine was acquired in 1981, the first digital subtraction angiography (DSA) machine was introduced in 1986 and the first magnetic resonance machine was installed in 1993. The Clinical Radiology Institute, Ljubljana University Medical Centre, performs ambulatory and hospital radiological management at the secondary and tertiary levels for patients from the region of Ljubljana and from the rest of the country. A sophisticated radiology is also at the University Medical Centre Maribor. In the first decade of the 21st century radiology developed particularly quickly, bringing recent developments in international radiology to Slovenia, especially in the field of interventional radiology.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s Idealism

The eighteenth-century German physicist, philosopher, and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–99) is well known for his objection to the substantial view of the self, but his thoughts on idealism and the relationship of his views to the positions of his philosophical predecessors are less familiar. I argue that Lichtenberg’s empiricism leads him to maintain a form of idealism according to which objects for us are only representations, and I show how this position relates to his linguistic idealism and his coherentist theory of truth. Seen in this light, Lichtenberg makes an important, if unacknowledged, contribution to the history of German philosophy distinct from later German idealism.

Cem anos de buracos negros: o centenário da solução de Schwarzschild

No início deste ano de 2016, o consórcio formado pelas colaborações LIGO e Virgo anunciou a primeira detecção direta de ondas gravitacionais. Exatamente 100 anos antes, Karl Schwarzschild, um físico e astrônomo alemão de refinada formação matemática, surpreendia Einstein e toda a comunidade científica com uma solução exata das complicadas equações da Teoria da Relatividade Geral. As condições nas quais desenvolveu este seu trabalho foram dramáticas e ficaram famosas: lutando com o exército alemão na frente russa da Primeira Guerra Mundial. É notável também que seu trabalho tenha sido praticamente simultâneo aos de Einstein que levaram à consolidação da Relatividade Geral, a tempo ainda de ter sua solução reconhecida e citada na formulação definitiva da Teoria, publicada por Einstein no mesmo ano de 1916. A desde então chamada solução de Schwarzschild foi o ponto de partida para uma das mais interessantes sagas da Física do Século XX: a descoberta dos buracos negros e suas fascinantes propriedades físicas, que estão por trás, também, dos fenômenos de ondas gravitacionais detectados diretamente este ano. Apresentaremos aqui um pouco dos contextos histórico e epistemológico destas notáveis descobertas e alguns de seus principais protagonistas.