Snippets of physics

The gravitational field of a massive, spherical, body like the Sun is described in general relativity by a solution to Einstein’s equations called the Schwarzschild soution. Here is an elementary persepective on this solution, which — though far from a rigourous derivation — raises intriguing questions. T Padmanabhan works at IUCAA, Pune and is interested in all areas of theoretical physics, especially those which have something to do with gravity. This is based on an article originally published by the author in Physics Education, Vol. 23, No.1, p.47, 2006.