Black-hole physics-an introduction

Black-hole physics is a new and exciting part of relativistic astrophysics. This paper is intended to be an introduction to this field, requiring no knowledge of general relativity or astrophysics (except for the qualitative features of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram). It is hoped that these lecture notes will enable the non- specialist to follow the present discussion concerning the experimental discovery of black-holes, and to show that many connections exist between elementary particle physics and astrophysics. (36 refs).