The Schwarzschild metric: It's the coordinates, stupid!

K. Schwarzschild, “Über das Gravitations-feld eines Massenpunktes nach der Einsteinschen Theorie”, Sitzungsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Phys.-Math. Klasse, 189–196 (1916);

1916

Earlier work this paper cites.

S. Antoci and A. Loinger, “On the gravitational field of a mass point according to Einstein’s theory” (English translation of Schwarzschild’s 1916 paper), (arXiv:physics/9905030)

1916

Earlier work this paper cites.

For a review of the history of black holes, see W. Israel, “Dark stars: the evolution of an idea”, in Three Hundred Years of Gravitation

1987

Earlier work this paper cites.

L. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, “The Classical Theory of Fields: Fourth Edition” (Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford, 2000)

2000

Cited alongside, same era.

A. D. Polyanin and V. F. Zaitsev, “Handbook of Exact Solutions for Ordinary Differential Equations” (Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2003), p. 107

2003

Cited alongside, same era.

For a review, see L. Blanchet, “Gravitational radiation from post-Newtonian sources and inspiralling compact binaries”, Living Rev. Relativity 9

2006

Cited alongside, same era.

Our title paraphrases a famous political dictum. During Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the US Presidency, his top advisor James Carville tried to keep him focused on talking about the previous administration’s economic failures by repeatedly telling him: “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Cited in the paper.

E. Poisson and C. M. Will, Gravity: Newtonian, post-Newtonian, Relativistic

Cited in the paper.

Like many Jewish scientists of the day, including Franck, Hertz and Haber, Schwarzschild joined in order to prove his loyalty as a German

Cited in the paper.

The legend that Schwarzschild found the solution while in a trench on the battlefield (there weren’t trenches at the Russian front) is evidently a myth

Cited in the paper.

Ironically the authors of the English translation of Schwarzschild’s paper cited in Ref. [ 3 ] state in their introduction that his paper “leaves no room for the science fiction of the black holes”. Evidently, confusion still reigns in some quarters

Cited in the paper.

S. Lie and L. Sylow, Eds., “Oeuvres Complètes de Niels Henrik Abel, Vol. 2” (Christiana, C. Gröndahl, 1881)

Cited in the paper.

S. Deser, “Stressless Schwarzschild”, arXiv:1307.4776

Original

Cited in the paper.

L. Borissova and D. Rabounski, “On the gravitational field of a point-mass according to Einstein’s theory” (English translation of Schwarzschild’s 1916 paper), A. Zelmanov Journal 1

2008

Later among the works it cites.

C. M. Will, “On the unreasonable effectiveness of the post-Newtonian approximation in gravitational physics”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. (US) 108

Original

2011

Later among the works it cites.