Naked singularities are banned from our universe because they are too computationally expensive for the fabric of reality to process.
April 23, 2026
Original Paper
Computational Cosmic Censorship
arXiv · 2604.20170
The Takeaway
Naked singularities have long been considered a forbidden state of matter that would break the laws of physics. This research suggests that these states are excluded not by geometry, but by an infinite computational cost. Describing these points would require a level of informational complexity that the universe simply cannot provide. This links the gravity of black holes directly to the theories of information and computer science. It implies that the universe acts like a computer that censors any state it cannot calculate.
From the abstract
We propose a computational formulation of weak cosmic censorship in AdS/CFT. Using the complexity=action proposal, we evaluate the Wheeler-DeWitt action for overcharged Reissner- Nordström-AdS spacetimes containing naked timelike singularities. We show that the bulk, null, and joint contributions remain finite, while the Gibbons-Hawking-York term at the singularity diverges. More generally, for any static and spherically symmetric geometry with near-origin scaling $f(r)\sim a r^{-p}$, the singul