Black Holes and Gravitational Collapse

Black holes are one of the strangest predictions of relativity theory. In this chapter we study some properties of black holes and discuss how they are expected to be the end result of the collapse of some types of stars in the real universe. One extraordinary theoretical property of black holes is that they should radiate energy like a classical black body; this profound prediction connects classical general relativity with quantum theory, although the radiation has not yet been observed.