In 1963, the mathematician Roy Kerr found a solution to Einstein's equations that precisely described the spacetime outside what we now call a rotating black hole. (The term wouldn't be coined for a few more years.) In the nearly six decades since his achievement, researchers have tried to show that these so-called Kerr black holes are stable. What that means, explained Jeremie Szeftel, a mathematician at Sorbonne University, 'is that if I start with something that looks like a Kerr black hole and give it a little bump''by throwing some gravitational waves at it, for instance''what you expect, far into the future, is that everything will settle down, and it will once again look exactly like a Kerr solution.' Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop'ments and trends in mathe'matics and the physical and life...
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