The Black Hole Era

While originally theorized to be a purely mathematical, inconsequential solution to Einstein’s field equations, black holes are now detected regularly using a variety of observing techniques. Since they famously emit no light of their own, black holes can only be observed via their gravitational influence on the stars around them, through the heating of the material that falls into them, or by colliding with other black holes in an explosion of gravitational waves. In this talk, I will discuss the current state of black hole astronomy, including how we look for and identify black holes, how we model them in simulations, and why we expect the number of known black holes to skyrocket in the next few years.