Naked Singularities

Making complex topics simple is… complicated

“It’s pretty simple,” my son Nicholas said matter-of-factly as he explained the concept of naked singularities. I don’t remember much else of the conversation, except words like “black hole” and “sucked”. And before your mind goes too deeply into the gutter, a naked singularity is a space-time phenomenon, not something out of a middle-school sex education class.

What struck me, as my son talked about his science-class project, was his use of the word “simple” in explaining something that defies Einstein’s theory of relativity. Indeed, he made the phenomenon sound simple, though I suspect it is much more complex. He probably thought his old man’s brain would disintegrate into dust if he went into any detail. He’s probably right. When it comes to naked singularities, simple will do.