The idea of gravitational collapse can be traced back to the first solution of Einstein’s equations, but in these early stages, compelling evidence to support this idea was lacking. Furthermore, there were many theoretical gaps underlying the conviction that a star could not contract beyond its critical radius. The philosophical views of the early 20th century, especially those of Sir Arthur S. Eddington, imposed equilibrium as an almost unquestionable condition on theoretical models describing stars. This paper is a historical and epistemological account of the theoretical defiance of this equilibrium hypothesis, with a novel reassessment of J.R. Oppenheimer’s work on astrophysics.

中文翻译：

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恒星平衡与重力坍塌

引力坍塌的思想可以追溯到爱因斯坦方程的第一个解，但是在这些早期阶段，缺乏支持该思想的令人信服的证据。此外，关于恒星不能收缩超出其临界半径的信念存在许多理论上的空白。20世纪初期的哲学观点，特别是亚瑟·S·爱丁顿爵士的观点，在描述恒星的理论模型中将平衡作为几乎毫无疑问的条件。本文是对这种平衡假说的理论背叛的历史和认识论解释，并对JR奥本海默（J. Oppenheimer）的天体物理学工作进行了新颖的重新评估。