Stephen J. Hawking, the renowned astrophysicist regarded as Albert Einstein's intellectual successor, conceded defeat this week in a wager he made six years ago with two professors at the California Institute of Technology. Hawking incorrectly bet against the existence of naked singularities - a mathematical point in a black hole where space and time are infinitely distorted, where matter is infinitely dense, and where the rules of relativistic physics break down. With all due respect to Mister Hawking... what the hell were you thinking?!!