Chronos said:
Singularities exist in the math, but this does not assure their physical reality. There may indeed be yet unknown forces that prohibit the existence of absolute singularities. I favor the Planck density as a candidate limit on matter density.
I agree with that 100% and have never "bought" the idea of a
zero size or infinite density for a so-called singularity.
I think the Planck length or Planck density would be a
minimum for any amount of collapsed matter, but actually think that any "singularity" would be even larger than that. I would also rule out a ring singularity of zero "thickness". But, zero size is part of the
definition of singularity, so perhaps we simply need a new name or description of such extremely condensed matter.
But, as others have noted, there is a fair bit of evidence for objects with R<=2Gm/c
2. So, unless we require the term and existence of a zero size and infinite density for there even to be a Black Hole, we would need a new term for those collapsed concentrations of matter too..(?) It gets too mixed up with semantics, but I can (and do) still believe there are Black Holes that happen to have a matter concentration with a finite size and large, but not infinite, density. Everyone has to keep in mind that
the matter/mass is still there in some form and that it doesn't just "blink" out of existence. It "
has to be there" or we wouldn't be able to measure its effect (mostly gravity) on outside objects.
Chronos: Was your comment also meaning that there are no compressed objects with R<=2Gm/c
2, therefore no Black Holes, or just that there are no infinite densities??