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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 June 2023
It is known from the singularity theorems of general relativity (see Hawking and Ellis, 1973) that, under a variety of circumstances, solutions to Einstein's equation with physically reasonable matter must develop singularities. In particular, for a sufficiently compacted body, trapped surfaces must be present (Schoen and Yau, 1983), and collapse to a singularity must occur. Of crucial importance for the theory of gravitational collapse is the issue of the nature of the final state resulting from such a coUapse. The idea that physically realistic gravitational collapse always results in a black hole-so that no “naked singularities”, visible to a distant observer, can occur-was first conjectured by Penrose (1969), although it had been implicitly assumed in many discussions and analyses prior to that time.
This research was supported in part by NSF grant PHY89-18388 and PHY92-20644 to the University of Chicago.