Shoemaker-Levy 9 (atthetop)

The term black hole is of very recent origin. It was coined in 1969 by the American scientist John Wheeler as a graphic description of an idea that goes back at least two hundred years, to a time when there were two theories about light: one, which Newton favoured, was that it was composed of particles; the other was that it was made of waves. We now know that really both theories are correct.