The ubiquity of black holes in modern physics

This is a translation of an article written originally in Portuguese for the journal Gazeta de F\'isica, in a special edition celebrating the 2020 Nobel prize in physics. The text targets a broad audience and focuses on the key ideas and developments in an entirely non-technical fashion, requiring from the reader only a keen interest in theoretical physics. The aim is to explain in an accessible way -- employing only basic and intuitive concepts -- the huge influence black holes have had in modern theoretical physics. Among the various topics covered, string theory and the AdS/CFT correspondence, extra dimensions, the quark-gluon plasma and holographic superconductors are highlighted.