Karl Schwarzchild grew up in a well off home in Frankfurt, Germany. Brought up in a Jewish home in early 20th century, Schwarzchild attended primary school until the age of eleven and had a father who was very active in the community. After primary school, Schwarzchild studied at two universities. One at Strasbourg and another at Munich. He developed a keen aptitude in physics and astronomy. At the age of twenty three he obtained a doctorate and began working at the Kuffner Observatory as an assistant in 1897.
Starting in 1901, Schwarzchild was a professor at the institute of Gottingen. He quickly rose from this position and became the director of the Gottingen Observatory in 1909. This led to a job as the director of the Astrophysical Observatory in Potsdam.
During the heat of World War I in 1914, Schwarzchild developed a skin disease that made him extremely ill. Regardless of the struggle this presented for him, Schwarzchild was still able to produce three papers. Two of the papers were on the theory of relativity and the third was regarding quantum theory. These papers showed explicit solutions to the Einstein field equations. It was the work on these three papers which yeilded what is not commonly known as the "Schwarzchild metric".
Work and Legacy
Black Holes: Schwarzchild predicted that the spacetime of a black hole is curved in a way that caused the future light cones to tip inward. This was shown vividly through the image below.
Event Horizon: From the discovery of light curves came the discovery of event horizons in black holes. What the event horizon does is show a distinguished line between where light can and cannot escape from a black hole as a cause of the light curve and gravitational pull of the mass itself.
Einstein's Theory of Relativity: Applied successfully to Schwarzchild's predictions.
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