Episode 2 of 3
Publication in Philosophical Transactions
- When
- 1784
- Where
- Royal Society of London
The paper was published in 1784 in volume 74 of the Philosophical Transactions, calculating that a superdense giant star could trap its own light.
The letter was published in 1784 in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume 74, pages 35–57. In a short part of the letter Michell calculated that a star with the same density but 500 times the radius of the Sun would not let any emitted light escape, because its surface escape velocity would exceed the speed of light.
Sources
- Black hole Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-30
- John Michell Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-01
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.