Roger Penrose won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that black-hole formation is a robust prediction of general relativity.
In 1965, Penrose published a landmark paper introducing mathematical techniques for studying gravitational collapse. His work demonstrated that, under broad physical conditions, collapsing matter can create singularities rather than requiring a perfectly symmetrical collapse. This made black holes a consequence of Einstein’s theory, not merely an artifact of simplified equations.
Penrose shared half of the 2020 physics prize. Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez shared the other half for observations of the supermassive compact object at the Milky Way’s center. The prize recognized both theoretical and observational advances.
Penrose’s result concerns singularity formation in classical general relativity. It does not provide a complete quantum description of what happens at the singularity, where current theories are expected to break down.