section_path: History/Etymology
section_name: Etymology
paragraph_text: Etymology
  
  John Michell used the term "dark star" in a November 1783 letter to Henry Cavendish, and in the early 20th century, physicists used the term "gravitationally collapsed object". Science writer Marcia Bartusiak traces the term "black hole" to physicist Robert H. Dicke, who in the early 1960s reportedly compared the phenomenon to the Black Hole of Calcutta, notorious as a prison where people entered but never left alive.
  
  The term "black hole" was used in print by Life and Science News magazines in 1963, and by science journalist Ann Ewing in her article " ' Black Holes' in Space", dated 18 January 1964, which was a report on a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Cleveland, Ohio.
  
  In December 1967, a student reportedly suggested the phrase "black hole" at a lecture by John Wheeler; Wheeler adopted the term for its brevity and "advertising value", and it quickly caught on, leading some to credit Wheeler with coining the phrase.