Letters

‘Black hole’ origins
“Black hole theory and discovery” (Back Story, SN: 7/4/09, p. 6) credits John Archibald Wheeler for inventing the term black hole in 1967. This is a very widespread choice, but it cannot be right. In January 1964, your ancestral publication, Science News Letter, carried a short article titled “‘Black holes’ in space,” which reported on a session at the AAAS meeting in Cleveland.