This isn't a longer gap, but I think it's interesting. Black holes were first hypothesized by someone named John Mitchell in 1783 [0]. Interestingly enough, a

This isn't a longer gap, but I think it's interesting. Black holes were first hypothesized by someone named John Mitchell in 1783 [0]. Interestingly enough, and back on topic for the article, Laplace also independently came to the same conclusion in 1796 [0]. It's a little fuzzy as to when black holes were "discovered": most sources say 1971, when Charles Bolton identified Cygnus X-1 as a black hole by measuring its mass indirectly using the wobble of nearby star HBE226868 [1], but the first image of a black hole was only taken in 2019 [2]. Yes, it looked just like in Interstellar, because Kip Thorne consulted on the film [3]. The gap from 1783-1971 is "only" 188 years, but 1783-2019 is 236 years. And, from Laplace's rediscovery of the idea, it's 175 and 223 years, respectively. I think that's pretty cool, too. --- [0]: https://blackholecam.org/john-mitchell-developed-theory-of-black-holes-already-in-1783 https://blackholecam.org/john-mitchell-developed-theory-of-b... [1]: http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/2012/01/very-first-black-hole-ever-discovered.html http://torontodreamsproject.blogspot.com/2012/01/very-first-... [2]: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2019/4/19/how-scientists-captured-the-first-image-of-a-black-hole/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2019/4/19/how-scientists-c... [3]: https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-black-hole/ https://www.wired.com/2014/10/astrophysics-interstellar-blac...