What is the size of a singularity.?

Answer 1

It depends on what you consider to be part of the 'singularity'.

If the singularity is just the mass itself, then it should be comparatively infinitesimal in size, though not a mathematical point by any means. According to quantum mechanics, nothing can be squeezed into a space smaller than its wavelength... though a mass of that magnitude undoubtedly has a very, very small wavelength (but not zero!). Likewise, string theory suggests that there is a smallest dimension to spacetime, a minimal space location quanta, so to speak, which nothing can be smaller than. So very small, yes, but not a mathematical point.

If you consider the singularity to also include all the space inside the event horizon, then black holes can be quite large indeed. It's not unreasonable to make this connection - anything past the event horizon disappears and can never ever come back (except perhaps as Hawking radiation)... it is just part of the 'black' in a black hole. Using this definition, the black hole which is thought to lie at the centre of our own galaxy would be about 15 million km across (even though all the mass is crammed infinitesimally in the centre of that).

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

Singularities have no properties other than mass and spin. Everything else, including size, is undefined. However, the event horizon around the singularity, that is, the surface where the escape velocity equals the speed of light, is defined by R = 2*(GM/c^2), where R is the radius,G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass, and c is the speed of light.

Answer 3

The answer is we don't know, partially because our mathematics give a solution that is undefined, so you can't know what the value is.


It is generally acknowledged that the singularity does not exist. The term 'infinitely small' is a paradox; if its infinitely small it has no volume and doesn't exist.

However, higher level physics would suggest that the singularity actually has volume, but at the planck length (1.6x10^-34 meters), the gravitational field begins to actually destory the fabric of space time (which essentially means this space becomes pure energy that exists within a point at space that is immeasurably small).

Answer 4

At a black holes singularity, the strength of gravity is infinite, so the curvature of spacetime there is infinite. Space, time, and size at the singularity are thus all jumbled up. They do not exist as seperate, destinctive entities. All the laws of physics require a clear, distinct background of space,time and size.Without this identificational background, we cannot speak rationally about the arrangement of objects in space or the ordering of events in time. Because space,time and size are all jumbled up at the center of a black hole, the singularity there does not obey the laws of physics. The singularity behaves in a random, capricious fashion, completely devoid of rhyme or reason.

Answer 5

A singularity has no size, it also has no volume. It is a single point.

Answer 6

Tiny

Answer 7

The size of a divide-by-zero error.

In other words, so small that it is infinitely large.

Answer 8

Hi. Impossible to tell because event horizon surrounding it is "the end of the world as we know it".

Answer 9

Any single unit.

Answer 10

Tammy