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No Naked Black Holes

Science News reports on a paper to be published in Physical Review Letters in which an international team of researchers describes their computer simulation of the most violent collision imaginable: two black holes colliding head-on at nearly light-speed. Even in this extreme scenario, Roger Penrose's weak cosmic censorship hypothesis seems to hold — the resulting black hole (after the gravitational waves have died down) retains its event horizon. "Mathematically, 'naked' singularities, or those without event horizons, can exist, but physicists wouldn't know what to make of them. All known mechanisms for the formation of singularities also create an event horizon, and Penrose conjectured that there must be some physical principle — a 'cosmic censor' — that forbids singularity nakedness ..."

2 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Penrose is smart by MadMidnightBomber · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Because he is not a sensationalist twat (cf Richard Dawkins).

    --
    "It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
  2. Very old news by russotto · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Wasn't this settled, oh, a DECADE ago, when some simulations showed that yes, there could be naked singularities formed? It doesn't matter how many scenarios don't create one, if one scenario does, then the theory allows for it (whether the real universe does or not).

    NYT story on naked singularity bet

    (Research on this comment consisted of one query to google, keywords "naked singularity")

    BTW, "naked black hole" is a contradiction in terms. A naked singularity is, by definition, not a black hole.