NAKED singularities and cosmic censorship may sound like lurid terms from the tabloids, but in fact these phrases lie at the heart of a troubling question for modern cosmology: what happens when our known laws of space and time break down, as happens in the final moments of a star collapsing to a point under its own gravity?
The answer, say a trio of cosmologists, lies in theories of quantum gravity, which attempt to unify the otherwise incompatible theories of quantum mechanics with Einstein's general relativity. According to Parampreet Singh of Pennsylvania State University at University Park and Rituparno Goswami and Pankaj Joshi of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India, a theory called loop quantum gravity can explain those final moments and could also reveal a distinct, observable signal to look for.
The collapse of stars heavier than about 5 solar masses is particularly disconcerting for cosmologists. ...
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