Do you believe that black holes exist?

If so, what do you think the possibility is that naked singularities (singularities that do not have the "black hole" part around the outside) exist?

Originally, Dr. Hawking said that he didn't believe that they could exist, since all stars spin, and by collapsing, they spin faster. A Naked Singularity would require that the singularity could not spin, or would have to be in an area where there was totally no matter, which we've never found. But now he believes that a naked singularity is not only theoretically possible, but is likely.

yesterday, I saw a show where they can actually see the milkyways black hole. They use a lazer to be able to do it. The only thing is they can't see whats going on around the black hole nore can they see what is going on inside the black hole. I am not very educated and surely not smart in science, but I space science anyway and love to watch it all the time, even Carl Sagan reruns.

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When a man sleeps in his bed, his soul leaves him to soar above, each soul according to its own way.......
The Zohar

Without an accretion disk, or event-horizon, how would you detect a black hole. Yes, gravitational lensing would still occur (since it is a feature of the mass of the singularity) but unless we had a much more complete map of the cosmos than we have, we would no more be able to accurately spot where it is than a 15th century mariner was able to accurately figure out longitude.

Actually, a more likely scenario than a naked singluarlity would be one that accretes dark matter (since most of the matter in the universe is dark) ....and that would be very interesting.

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Grassaf, Eolas

Well, except for the gravitational pull and gravitational lensing, a naked singularity wouldn't be detectable. At least, we don't have the physics to do so yet. Maybe in the future.

I'm puzzled about the idea of using lasers to 'see' the black hole (or either of them, there are two), at the center of the milky way. The reason is that particles of dust and hydrogen that lay between us and the black holes absorb higher wave lengths. The higher the wave length, the greater the absorbsion. That is the reason why optical telescopes cannot see the center of the galaxy. Lasers are amplified light, but they are still light. To my knowledge, the only good pictures we have of anything at the center of our galaxy have come from radio telescopes, which have much longer wave length. Could you mean MASER instead of LASER? (LASER is Light Amplification due to Stimulated Emission of Radiation, or basically intense light, and MASER is Microwave Amplification due to Stimulated Emission of Radiation, or basically very powerful sound/radio waves.)