A singularity is, roughly speaking, a region of extremely high density into which matter or light is attracted. While Steven Hawking Eric Weisstein's World of Biography has proposed that physical singularities can occur only inside Black holes where they cannot be seen, physicists Kip Thorne and John Preskill believe observable ("naked") singularity can exist. Hawking Eric Weisstein's World of Biography therefore made a bet with Throne and Preskill in 1991. After supercomputer simulations by M. Choptuik showed how a naked singularity could exist, Hawking Eric Weisstein's World of Biography was forced to concede the bet ("on a technicality," according to Hawking Eric Weisstein's World of Biography) on Feb. 5, 1997. In concession, Hawking Eric Weisstein's World of Biography presented his colleagues with "adequate raiments to shield their nakedness from the vulgar view."
Christodoulou Eric Weisstein's World of Biography (1994, 1999) showed that naked singularities occur in the gravitational collapse of a scalar field.
References
American Mathematical Society. "1999 Bôcher Prize." http://www.ams.org/notices/199904/comm-bocher-prz.pdf.
Christodoulou, D. "Examples of Naked Singularity Formation in Gravitational Collapse of a Scalar Field." Ann. Math. 104, 607-665, 1994.
Christodoulou, D. "The Instability of Naked Singularities in the Gravitational Collapse of a Scalar Field." Ann. Math. 149, 183-217, 1999.
Tindol, R. "A Brief History of Nakedness." Engineering & Science, the Alumni Publication of the California Institute of Technology 60, 9, 1997.
