  Orbifolds in field theory are potentially singular objects for at their fixed
points the curvature becomes infinite, therefore one may wonder whether field
theory calculations near orbifold singularities can be trusted. String theory
is perfectly well defined on orbifolds and can therefore be taken as a UV
completion of field theory on orbifolds. We investigate the properties of field
and string theory near orbifold singularities by reviewing the computation of a
one loop gauge field tadpole. We find that in string theory the twisted states
give contributions that have a spread of a couple of string lengths around the
singularity, but otherwise the field theory picture is confirmed. One
additional surprise is that in some orbifold models one can identify local
tachyons that give contributions near the orbifold fixed point.
