Professor Yuval Ne'eman Memorial Lecture: "Black Holes in Galaxies: Experimental Evidence and Cosmic Evolution"

Professor Dr. Reinhard Genzel is a ​2024/2025 Lowy Distinguished Guest Professor of the Institute of Advanced Studies.

Abstract:

About a century after Albert Einstein's presentation of General Relativity and Karl Schwarzschild's first solution, three experimental techniques have made remarkable progress in proving the existence of the Schwarzschild/Kerr black hole solution. 

I will describe the impressive progress of high resolution near-infrared radio imaging, interferometry and precision measurements of gravitational waves in the Galactic Center and other galaxies. I will then discuss what we now know about the cosmic co-evolution and growth of galaxies, as well as black holes. I will finish with the riddle of massive black holes detected by JWST, only a few hundred Myr after the Big Bang.