Universal charge-mass relation: From black holes to atomic nuclei

Understand

The cosmic censorship hypothesis, introduced by Penrose forty years ago, is one of the corner stones of general relativity.

• This conjecture asserts that spacetime singularities that arise in gravitational collapse are always hidden inside of black holes.
• The elimination of a black-hole horizon is ruled out by this principle because that would expose naked singularities to distant observers.
• We test the consistency of this prediction in a gedanken experiment in which a charged object is swallowed by a charged black hole.