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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 ..."

20 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. from the also-no-hair dept. by suso · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh jeez.

  2. Re:Here come the goatse jokes by Legion_SB · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's already asking a lot for nerdlings to not snicker at any reference to a "hole".

    Adding in nakedness just goes beyond any reasonable expectation of restraint.

    --
    'a';DROP TABLE users; SELECT * FROM DATA WHERE name LIKE '%'... if you're reading this, it didn't work.
  3. Cosmic Censor by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Funny

    Penrose conjectured that there must be some physical principle â" a 'cosmic censor' â" that forbids singularity nakedness...

    God, is that you?

    1. Re:Cosmic Censor by NuclearError · · Score: 5, Funny

      Sure is - black holes have mass and are therefore Catholic.

      --
      Nuclear engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
    2. Re:Cosmic Censor by Bieeanda · · Score: 4, Funny
      Yes, it is.

      Now stop touching yourself.

    3. Re:Cosmic Censor by retsil · · Score: 5, Funny

      Every positron is sacred, every charge is great. If thy don't annihilate then thou must gyrate. Let the singularities spill them, let them loose their mass. ...

    4. Re:Cosmic Censor by ozbird · · Score: 3, Funny

      Only if they eat wafers and sacrimental wine. Eating stars, solar systems etc. is gluttony - one of the seven deadly sins (collect them all!)

  4. Singularity nakedness on Slashdot by unassimilatible · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seems to me, most people on Slashdot likely *only* experience singularity nakedness.

    --
    Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
  5. Just as I suspected... by Tau+Neutrino · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...the maximal Cauchy development of generic compact or asymptotically flat initial data is locally inextendible as a regular Lorentzian manifold.

    Right?

    --
    Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
    1. Re:Just as I suspected... by Anpheus · · Score: 4, Funny

      What if you reverse the polarity?

    2. Re:Just as I suspected... by Filbertish · · Score: 4, Funny

      Or maybe we could match the event horizon harmonics with an inverse tachyon pulse.

    3. Re:Just as I suspected... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
  6. Emmett Brown by Kagura · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's heavy, Doc.

  7. Re:Physicists... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    In other words, yo momma's so fat, her Schwarzchild radius is visible to the naked eye?

  8. Penrose is a kill-joy. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Penrose conjectured that there must be some physical principle -- a 'cosmic censor' -- that forbids singularity nakedness...

    Which is why the DVDs "Physicists Gone Wild" were never really successful. Although the LHC did turn up as the hottest collider in Europe, so far still no naked singularities.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Penrose is a kill-joy. by nedlohs · · Score: 5, Funny

      They're fixing that coolant leak. Calling them hot is just uncalled for.

  9. Shhh by caspy7 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You had me at naked...

  10. Move Violent?... by supernova_hq · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...the most violent collision imaginable: two black holes colliding head-on at nearly light-speed.

    What about 3 black holes colliding head-on at nearly light-speed?

  11. Re:Non-Condradiction by bitrex · · Score: 4, Funny

    I believe that some solutions have space being discrete at the Planck length, rather than continuous, and this discreteness also removes singluarities.

    I spent $82,000 on tube amplifiers and vintage vinyl, and now you tell me God's system is digital? Auuuugghh...

  12. Re:Does anyone else get sad? by Skazz11 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Having the massive intellect to comprehend the answers to all these questions does not make one less depressed.

    Marvin.