Roy KerrBorn 16 May 1934.Roy P(atrick) Kerr is a New Zealander mathematician who solved (1963) Einstein's field equations of general relativity to describe rotating black holes, thus providing a major contribution to the field of astrophysics. He deduced a unique two-parameter family of solutions which describes the space-time around black holes in July 1963. The two parameters are the mass of the black hole and the angular momentum of the black hole. (The static solution, with zero angular momentum, was discovered by Karl Schwarzschild in Dec 1915.) Rotating black holes are often called Kerr Black Holes. He showed that there is a vortex-like region outside the event horizon, called the ergo-region, that drags space and time around with the rotating black hole. |