Preprint of article: Fundamental Breakdown of Physics in Gravitational Collapse (1975)

Fundamental Breakdown of Physics in Gravitational Collapse. [OAP-420.] [Pasadena: California Institute of Technology,] Orange Aid Preprint Series in Nuclear, Atomic & Relativistic Astrophysics, August 1975.

Part of Stephen Hawking's Office collection, but not coming directly from the office, are a collection of offprints of varied publications authored by him over the years. Along with them is this preprint in its final, press-printed format.

Preprints are a typical stage in the path of an academic paper towards its publication. They tend to be versions that are ready for peer review, intended for circulation among peers before or during the peer review process. Much actually fruitful scientific communication is done via preprints rather than finalized articles: by the time a scientific paper is officially published, experts in the field have likely already read and commented on earlier versions, and learned from them what is relevant for their own work. Before the 1990s, preprints were generally issued by academic departments, in small print runs of dozens to hundreds; or more informally as photocopies. Many academic departments and research institutions have an officially run preprint series, with (somewhat) standardized numbering and formatting. With the advent first of e-mail and newsgroups, and later online preprint depositories such as ArXiv, the vast majority of circulation has moved online. Since the mid-1990s, printed versions of preprints have become almost symbollic.