# Event horizons without singularities

Someone answered this question by saying that black hole entropy conditions and no-hair theorems are asymptotic in nature -- the equations give an ideal solution which is approached quickly but never actually reached from the point of view of an observer outside the event horizon.

Since then I've been wondering whether singularities are ever really created, and if not, why do we worry about naked singularities?

Quick recap: to an external observer, an object falling into a black hole experiences time dilation such that it appears to take an infinite amount of time to cross the event horizon and ends up sitting frozen at the border.

So here's my reasoning: the above should also apply during the formation of the black hole in the first place. The gravitational field approaches infinite density as the constituent matter approaches a central point, but to an outside observer, it takes an infinite amount of time for the singularity to form. In other words, it never happens.

As I understand it, naked singularities are dismissed with hand-waving, "we'll fix it when we go quantum," but I don't see that as necessary. It seems to me that singularities never actually form, although event horizons clearly do.

Does this mean that we can stop worrying? What happens in naked singularity scenarios when there is no singularity yet?

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 Actually, it's believed that naked singularities cannot classically form from ordinary'' matter except in extremely exceptional circumstances. No need to invoke quantum mechanics at all. – Jerry Schirmer May 23 '12 at 12:53