At the centre of every galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole (a million to a billion times bigger than the Sun). But how do we even know that? There are so many scientific results that have jigsawpieced together throughout the past century that allow us to know that now, so join me, as I go through decade by decade and explain the significance of all the results that have built up the big picture.

00:00 Introduction
00:53 1900s
03:58 1910s
05:50 1920s
06:58 1930s
09:04 1940s
11:00 1950s
12:09 1960s
17:14 1970s
18:38 1980s
19:40 1990s
22:12 2000s
23:28 2010s

Here are links to all the papers I mentioned throughout the video, again listed by decade (note that "et al." is Latin for "and others"):

Michell (1784) https://royalsocietypublishing.org/do...

Fath (1909) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Einstein (1915) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
Schwarzschild (1916) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

Lemaître (1927) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Hubble (1929) https://www.pnas.org/content/15/3/168

Einstein (1931; cosmological constant introduced) http://echo.mpiwgberlin.mpg.de/ECHOd...
Chandrasekhar (1931) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Tolman (1939) https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/...
Oppenheimer & Volkoff (1939) https://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/...

Seyfert (1943) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Bolton, Stanley & Slee (1949) https://www.nature.com/articles/164101b0

Baade & Minkowski (1954) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Burbidge (1959) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...

Minkowski (1960) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Giacconi (1962) https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
Hoyle & Fowler (1963) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Schmidt (1963) https://www.nature.com/articles/19710...
Kerr (1963) https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
Salpeter (1964) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Zel’dovich (1964) https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19...
Schmidt & Matthews (1964) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Schmidt (1965) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Penrose (1965) https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...
Hawking (1967) https://www.jstor.org/stable/2415769?...
Hewish, Bell et al. (1968) https://www.nature.com/articles/217709a0
LyndenBell (1969) https://www.nature.com/articles/223690a0

Lyden Bell & Rees (71) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Wolfe & Burbidge (1974) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Bardeen, Carter & Hawking (1973) https://link.springer.com/article/10....
Bekenstein (1973) https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract...
Balick & Brown (1974) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Sargent et al. (1978) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...

Dressler (84) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Kormendy (88) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...

Harms et al. (1994) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Miyoshi et al. (1995) https://www.nature.com/articles/373127a0
Urry & Padovani (1995) https://arxiv.org/pdf/astroph/950606...
Faber et al. (1997) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pd...
Magorrian et al. (1998) https://arxiv.org/pdf/astroph/970807...

Ferrarse & Merritt (2000) https://arxiv.org/pdf/astroph/000605...
Gebhardt et al. (2000) https://arxiv.org/pdf/astroph/000628...

Hopkins et al. (2006) https://arxiv.org/pdf/astroph/050639...
Simmons, Smethurst & Lintott (2017) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.10793.pdf
Martin et al. (2018) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1801.09699.pdf



My book: "Space at the Speed of Light" is now available in the USA & Canada! https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...

For anywhere else in the world you can buy my book here (Space: 10 Things You Should Know same book, different title) here: http://bit.ly/SpaceDrBecky



‍ Dr Becky Smethurst is an astrophysicist researching galaxies and supermassive black holes at Christ Church at the University of Oxford.
http://drbecky.uk.com
https://rebeccasmethurst.co.uk