 In this case, the maximal extension of the resulting spacetime is obvious, and does indeed fix the problem of all such incomplete paths: re-incorporate the previously excised set. (See  Figure 3.)  The seemingly artificial and contrived nature of such examples, along with the ease of rectifying them, seems to militate in favor of requiring spacetimes to be maximal. Also, inextendibility is sometimes argued for on the grounds that there is no known physical process that could cause spacetime to draw up short, as it were, and not continue on as it could have, were it to have an extension (Clarke 1975; Ellis and Schmidt 1977). 