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virtualist's avatar

I'm aware of proposed examples of 'singularities', both physical and mathematical. Are there entities, either physical or mathematical , that are 'binarities' or triplarities' ?

Asked by virtualist (2432 points ) October 1st, 2009

…black holes and the ‘big bang’ come to mind as examples of singularities.

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4 Answers

poofandmook's avatar

This has nothing to do with anything really, but I was watching one of the earlier episodes of Star Trek TNG and there was a lifeform called the Binars, who were always in pairs, and their language was as close to binary as a living being could make it. Their thought processes were in binary also; there were only two options. 1 or 0. Yes or no.

Hey, it was interesting, and you said “binarities” so I’m claiming to be at least 1% on topic!

aphilotus's avatar

There are Binary Star Systems, where the planets orbit around two close-together stars that themselves orbit around a stable center. Many “pulsars” are actually binary stars where one burns much hotter and brighter than the other.

There have been cases seen of black holes right next to stars, slowly sucking them dry as the stars “circle the drain”, or maybe that was a Star Trek episode?

I think if two black holes were close enough to be called vaguely “Binary” they would just suck each other up and become a, pardon the pun, single-larity.

There is a notion that a black hole could be linked with another one to form a wormhole where matter passing through one comes out of the other, which vaguely fulfills a notion of “binarity”, as there are two such singularities.

Triplarities I think would be harder to come by simply because gravitationally, three body systems are inherently unstable. Any kind of misalignment, and the system would rapidly collapse into being binaric or singularic.

So I guess my answer is probably “no, that’s crazy.”

RealEyesRealizeRealLies's avatar

Singularity… that’s a funny word.
It means “we don’t have a freaking clue but want you to think that we do”.

Science wants one free miracle… They call it “Singularity”.

If the cause of the “Singularity” is ever discovered, they’ll call it something else.

mattbrowne's avatar

When Kurzweil’s singularity gets married it’s called a binarity.

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