Do Naked Singularities Break the Rules of Physics?
Do Naked Singularities Break the Rules of Physics? The black hole has a troublesome sibling, the naked singularity. Physicists have long thought–hoped–it could never exist. But could it? By Pankaj S. Joshi Modern science has introduced the world to plenty of strange ideas, but surely one of the strangest is the fate of a massive star that has reached the end of its life. Having exhausted the fuel that sustained it for millions of years, the star is no longer able to hold itself up under its own weight, and it starts collapsing catastrophically. Modest stars like the sun also collapse, but they stabilize again at a smaller size. Whereas if a star is massive enough, its gravity overwhelms all the forces that might halt the collapse. From a size of millions of kilometers across, the star crumples to a pinprick smaller than the dot on an “i.” Most physicists and astronomers think the result is a black hole, a body with such intense gravity that nothing can escape from its immediate vicin
