Sir, Your obituary of the physicist John Wheeler (April 15) credits him with giving astronomical “black holes” their name. It is true that the Oxford English Dictionary credits Wheeler with the coinage of “black hole” in 1968. However, the ongoing research project for the Yale Book of Quotations has uncovered strong evidence indicating that Wheeler was not the coiner.

A search on the JSTOR digital journal archive reveals an article in Science News Letter, January 18, 1964, entitled “Black Holes in Space”. Reporting on a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Cleveland, the article uses “black hole” repeatedly to refer to the collapse of a degenerate star. Wheeler’s name is not listed among the speakers at the AAAS meeting, and this was three years before he is said to have hit upon the term.

Fred R. Shapiro

Editor, Yale Book of Quotations

New Haven, Connecticut

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