Am I right in saying that singularities are impossible?

Question

Every time I thought about a "singularity" my first thought had always been, "well, doesn't that defy conservation of mass/energy?" The reason I thought this was because I said to myself, "At some point, the strings or whatever will become as tightly packed as physically possible because you can't just have multiple matter occupying the EXACT same space, as this would defy logic. it would be a like a 3 sided square in that, by definition, this is impossible. Matter/Energy is a physical thing, so how can it be in the EXACT same place as another physical thing?"

Low and behold, just the other day I read about how Quantum Mechanics forbids wave-like particles from occupying a space smaller than their wavelength, thus singularities are impossible since they would break the Laws of Quantum Mechanics. or is QM just wrong?

Answer 1

The string theory holographic principle resolves the black hole information loss paradox and Hawkings Radiation resolves the conservation of mass / energy not that that would be needed as classical mechanical physic doesn't really apply although thermodynamics does. The gravity exceeds the de Pauli exclusion principle hence the string theory waves occupy the same location.



No, you're wrong, you're trying to apply grade school newtonian physics to quantum mechanics, string theory, thermodynamics and cosmology, you should consider taking a few courses at a more advanced level before questioning QM. QM is strange but has never been proven wrong.

Answer 2

"Am I right in saying that singularities are impossible?"



No. Not at all.



Sonoluminescence is a singularity. The cold, dark, infinitely diffuse future towards which we are moving is another. Bose-Einstein condensate yet another. The photon and electron are other examples... they have no physical size.



"[Lo] and behold, just the other day I read about how Quantum Mechanics forbids wave-like particles from occupying a space smaller than their wavelength, thus singularities are impossible since they would break the Laws of Quantum Mechanics. or is QM just wrong?"



QM is not wrong, but QM does not do "wavelength", "space", "occupy" without splicing classical physics on. Which we do not always do well. So the analysis is flawed.



[EDIT:



Let me add that classical mechanics is *based* on singularity, and avoidance of same. It infinitely divides what we model as a continuum, and then assumes that all the differentials are finite. It then uses infinite summation (integration) to arrive at formulae or numerical relations.



You are worrying about the speck in others eyes, when you have a plank in your own.

]

Answer 3

from the "particle" side of things, a singularity occurs AFTER the electrons are crushed down into the protons, resulting in NOTHING but neutrons. As you are aware, MOST of the "space" or "volume" of the standard model of an atom is empty space filled with the electrostatic repulsion of the oppositely charged particles. when all those electrons stop repelling each other and form neutrons, a stellar object like a large star collapses down into a sphere of neutronium a could of 10 or 20 miles across..... you can roughly do the math in a quick and dirty way, Our sun is MUCH to small for this to happen, so a star MANY MANY times bigger, collapsing down to a 20 miles sphere.



AFTER that, it collapses AGAIN, into a singularity from which no light can escape, when the subatomic bonds holding the subatomic particles of a "neutron" collapse and we end up with a ball of gluons or quarks or some other impossibly dense unmeasurably small sphere. The exact composition will remain a mystery for a LONG time, but we can speculate, based on the apparent diameter, the radius of the event horizon and the prior mass. From multi-solar volume to 20 mile sphere was probably the SMALL step, the MINOR reduction in size and density.



but they are still possible.



from the QM side of things, the collapse of the star results in wave-like particles with a MUCH smaller wavelength then their pre-collapse state. Like "Plank length" particles

Answer 4

I'd second what George Patton said but to expand on the idea that things can compact down to 0 size, I'd say that it is impossible. As the particles get denser, space-time becomes more and more bent. Because of this, it would end up taking an infinite amount of time for things to fully compress down into a single point.

Answer 5

"Singularities" are just mathematical constructs where our understanding breaks down and infinities start showing up in the math. So yes, "singularities" do not exist. There's no "singularity" out there you can fly up to. But our gaps in understanding, leading to the mathematical "singularity" in certain places (like prior to the Planck epoch or in a black hole) certainly is real.

Answer 6

Yes