Researchers at the University of Cambridge have shown that naked singularities can exist in a three-dimensional space that resembles our universe, but has negative curvature. Thus, scientists rejected the "principle of space censorship", which was formulated by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose. This is reported on the Phys.org website.
A singularity forms when a massive star begins to collapse due to powerful gravitational pull. This occurs during a supernova explosion that forms a black hole. A region of space arises inside it, in which the gravitational attraction becomes infinitely high.
Under certain conditions, the event horizon can disappear (for example, if the black hole is massive and rotates rapidly), so the singularity becomes observable. In this case, she is called naked. However, physicists Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking have suggested that physical laws forbid the existence of naked singularities. The event horizon should "protect" an external observer from violation of physical laws in the center of the black hole. This is because no information can get out of there, since it will need to move at a speed higher than the speed of light.
The "principle of cosmic censorship" is violated in space, which has spatial dimensions, the number of which exceeds three. However, in the new study, scientists have modeled the conditions under which naked singularities can exist in a three-dimensional universe. It turned out that the latter should be bent in a special way, acquiring a saddle shape. This space is called anti-desitter space.
Stephen Hawking is known for his work on cosmology and the popularization of science. He studies the problems of the origin and evolution of black holes, as well as the cosmological singularity - the primary state of the Universe, from which, according to the Big Bang theory, it is continuously expanding. In 1963, when he was 22 years old, doctors diagnosed him with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Despite his illness, Hawking continued to study science, was married twice, and has three children.