Karl Schwarzschild

Karl Schwarzschild
Born	(1873-10-09)9 October 1873 Frankfurt am Main, German Empire
Died	11 May 1916(1916-05-11) (aged 42)[1]: xix  Potsdam, German Empire
Alma mater	Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich University of Strasbourg
Scientific career
Fields	Physics Astronomy
Doctoral advisor	Hugo von Seeliger
Military career
Allegiance	German Empire
Service/branch	Imperial German Army
Years of service	1914–1916
Rank	Lieutenant
Battles/wars	World War I

Karl Schwarzschild (German: [kaːl ˈʃvaːtsʃɪlt] ^ⓘ; 9 October 1873 – 11 May 1916) was a German physicist and astronomer.

Schwarzschild 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.^[2][3] Various forms of the disease particularly affect people of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.^[4][5][6]

Asteroid 837 Schwarzschilda is named in his honour, as is the large crater Schwarzschild, on the far side of the Moon.^[7]