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Space Science

Wormholes? Maybe. 148

Posted by Hemos from the could-be-possibly dept.
A number of people have e-mailed with the BBC's coverage of the some "new theories" from a Russian scientist that have been unveiled in New Scientist magazine. The theories have been met with some skepticism by the scientific community, so don't go planning your vacation to Alpha Centauri quite yet.
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Wormholes? Maybe. More

Wormholes? Maybe.

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  • the nearest one would lead into intergalactic space.
  • The article piques my interest, but I am wondering exactly what is meant by building a wormhole... The scientist acknowledges that we lack the technonlgy to build such a thing, but in saying that, does he have any CLUE about how to go about it? I can't even begin to imagine how to go about it. Of course, there is always that miniscule possibilty that we might find one through sheer luck...
  • From the BBC article:
    "Krasnikov accepts that testing his claims by building a wormhole is far beyond present technology."

    Any scientist here know just what it will take to construct a man-made wormhole? I'm very curious. Large amounts of energy or what? My highschool physics doesn't seem to help much here...

    ---------------

  • Actually considering how much of space is just that, empty space, we'd be very lucky to find a wormhole close to us that goes near anything else. Unless for some reason graviational effects of stars and/or planets has an effect on where wormholes open up.

  • Re:If you can't say anything nice... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Since when did the English become the world authorities on astrology?

    Since around the same time Americans couldn't tell the difference between astronomy and astrology...

  • Original article pointer (Score:5)

    by ckd ( 72611 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @05:57AM (#1135104) Homepage

    The original New Scientist article [newscientist.com] is online, as is the full paper [lanl.gov] which has much more content.

    This is interesting, but even if it turns out that they can be found (or built), there may be problems. If they can be moved, you can turn one into a time machine (giving causality the finger) by accelerating one end to relativistic speeds and taking it on a trip, as noted in the actual paper (but ignored by both the New Scientist and BBC articles).

    A reasonable SF treatment of this particular idea is in Robert Forward's Timemaster. The characters make cardboard look 3D, and the prose isn't the most beautiful, but the main hook is the physics speculation--and Forward does that quite well.

  • A while yet... (Score:3)

    by The Good Reverend ( 84440 ) <michael AT michris DOT com> on Thursday April 13, 2000 @05:58AM (#1135105) Journal
    If this were true, it would be most amazing...but unless they were both abundant and local, they wouldn't do us too much good. If there were enough of them, we could use them, but that's a big if.

    The only way for these to be truely useful would be if we could create them - a la science fiction - and use them as we see fit. But who knows, there could millions or billions of them. Hopefully, some day, the space progams will start real missions again, and we might someday know.

    The Good Reverend

  • Confusion (Score:3)

    by bozak911 ( 165677 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @06:01AM (#1135106) Homepage
    How is this useful?
    That is not a silly or stupid question. If you created a new wormhole everytime you wanted one, have they worked out a way to set the *destination* of the exit?

    Once opened, how much energy would it require to maintain it? Do we just open it for a short while, send a ship out and then abandon it?

    I am interested to read the actual article, not just a blurb or two from it.
  • It's really quite simple. Buy one (1) large bottle of vodka.

    Drink the large bottle of vodka.

    When you wake up, you'll find yourself in a different place with no memory of how you got there!

    Now that's a wormhole!

  • Re:Man made wormhole? (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13, 2000 @06:06AM (#1135108)
    I don't know what it would take... it might not even be theoretically possible. For more information, go to gr-qc archives [arxiv.org] and do an author search on Krasnikov [arxiv.org] or Visser [arxiv.org]. Also check out Visser's superb book Lorentzian Wormholes [amazon.com]. There is also at least one regular reader of sci.physics.relativity [sci.physics.relativity] who knows a fair amount about this stuff if you want to ask questions.

  • Wormholes... (Score:3)

    by vinylone ( 72601 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @06:09AM (#1135109)
    It's raining like hell here in Boise, and there's Wormholes all over my lawn!
    Halp!

    Eric Lecht

    "I do what I can, I work in the dark"

  • Re:Build a wormhole? (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13, 2000 @06:10AM (#1135110)
    to "build" a theoretical wormhole you would first have to sustain a fusion process and make it grow large enough that it cant sustain its own mass. then you would have an ultra dense mass with such incredible gravity that it would collapse in on itself thus creating a rip in space time. thats assuming you start from scratch, otherwise you can compress an already existing mass in on itself, for example its estimated that if you compressed the earth into a sphere .7inches in diameter that it would create a tear in space time.

    thats what 8 years of working as an astrophysicist will do to you :)
  • I might, instead, suggest tequila. There's already a worm in the bottom of the bottle (well, in some bottles), so it would be the most logical choice.

    Maybe tequila is the exotic matter to which they refer?

    --Corey
  • >finding one would have a dramatic effect on
    >interstellar travel.

    Making it to *Mars* would have a dramatic effect on interstellar travel. This sounds great but imagine how much we could learn if only we could put some of these arm-chair Jean Luc Picard's in space!
  • Opening a wormhole on our side might be trivial (let us assume). But, that's just like having a phone with no phone line or switchboard. If we were to travel to Alpha Centuria, we'd need a corrosponding worm hole on that side. That means someone has to physically go 4 light years there and construct a mirror worm hole. And thus it's not feasible to use wormholes to travel to distant places in our universe. Unless some other party on some other distant part of the known galaxy created a similar worm hole and sent us the coordinates.
    --

  • Old idea. (Score:3)

    by zunger ( 17731 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @06:13AM (#1135114)
    Krasnikov's Subway is an old idea; it was written as a response to Alcubierre's warp drive article, which I think we talked about here a while ago. It is perfectly consistent as a solution to classical general relativity, but the requirement for this is an enormous (about 10^80 times the mass of the universe) amount of negative mass. There are various quantum theorems that tell us that QM prevents anything more than infinitesimal amounts of negative mass from forming, so I wouldn't bother planning any Alpha Centauri commutes aboard this subway. (BTW, the Alcubierre warp drive has very similar problems. Both of these came out in the early '90s.)
  • I don't know this guy's theory, but I suspect he's right. Or, at the very least, no more wrong than the Inflationary Universe model guys. Here's the idea I've always had in mind.

    The "Inflationary Universe" model basically stated that, as empty space can't exist, if you have an expanding universe, you're creating virtual particles, a-la Quantum Mechanics. Expand it fast enough, and the virtual particles seperate and become real particles.

    If a quantum-scale wormhole's interior expands, for some reason, the same logic could apply. The exotic conditions cause exotic virtual particles to form in the space. Expand it fast -enough-, and those become real, filling the interior with real exotic particles, with the propertites required to keep it stable.

    The problem, then, is one of how to inflate the interior of a wormhole. That one, I don't know. But I do know that the energy densities required to do this are well within the capabilities of modern technology.

    Now, it's almost certain that this guy has some completely different idea in mind, and I'd like to know what it is. If it's more practical than the one I've outlined, then it might become a reality within only one or two generations.

  • Ah, yes. The armchair, untrained theorist who is smarter than every theoretical physicist on the rest of the Earth, including Stephen Hawking.

    If you're so smart, why are you wasting your time on Slashdot?

  • This is _very_ useful. If we want to ever go outside of our solar system, we will need another way besides a rocketship. Just to go to Alpha Certura (the closet star to the sun, at 4.5 light years), it would, going light-speed, take 4.5 years, to a traveller on the spacecraft, to us on earth, he'd take a whole lot longer because of time dialation, the breakeven point between speed/time dialation is about71% the speed of light, so, let's just say that there's no reason to ever go faster then that. Going that speed, it would take 6.3 year to get there, from the stadpoint of the spacecraft, it would still be longer on earth.

    As we can see, there's a minor problem if we ever want to even leave our solar system, much less our galaxy (70k light years across) or, the universe (~15*10^9 light years across)....you do the math, to get over there, even going the speed of light, from the spacecraft's standpoint, the universe will have expanded so much and cooled so much, that it'd be pointless to go there.

    However, if there were wormholes, perhaps left over from the big bang (when the universe was about the size of the plank legnth), then it would be very reasonable to travel across the universe, through a wormhole.

    Another possibility is that space is curved on top of it-self, and that some stars we see in the sky are duplicates. This might happen if there was enough gravity to collapse that universe, but it also might provide some shortcuts to distant places.

    Grades, Social Life, Sleep....Pick Two.

  • In my humnle opinion, its better to NOT know that these things exist - we have numerous examples in history to prove we're better off not knowing about them. Example:
    How about stardate 4378324.8 when Ben Sisko discovers that there's a stable worm hole in his backyard??? DS9 went from a quiet backspace hang out with a bar and a shapeshifter to all the Cardassians in the universe pouring through the wormhole.

    Research it if you want, but if you find G'ul Dukat breathing down your neck don't say i didn't warn you!

    ~zero




    insert clever line here
  • IANAP. However, from the reading I've done, it would seem that to produce even a very small wormhole would take an enormous amount of negative mass in a very small space... You can look here for a sort of random discussion of traversable wormholes [geocities.com].
  • While attempts to unify the fundamental forces of nature suggest that tiny quantum wormholes may exist, most experts suspect that some fundamental law of physics prevents the formation of large wormholes--not least because these would theoretically allow time travellers to go back in time and, say, prevent their own birth by accidentally killing one of their parents.

    This was in the second paragraph.
  • someone has to physically go 4 light years there and construct a mirror worm hole Send a robot to open the other end at speeds humankind couldn't withstand. Of course the robot would probably be really complicated and bulky, and it would take it a long time to get there, but we're not talking current tech anyways... This article really doesn't really have enough content(most of it would be beyond us anyways?) to judge anything, but makes for some interesting speculation(most of it already done in science fiction).
  • ...and one thing I noticed: way too little math. I will grant that I did not look at the math closely, but have you ever read through any Astrophysics journal article that had more words than equations?

    It is an interesting thought, and he does seem to address a few questions, but I'd be very leery of taking this nay further than "Don't say it can't happen."
  • There was an article in a relatively recent Scientific American discussing wormholes and warp drives. At least according to that article, some of the situations required more energy than was available in the visible universe. There are also some situations that require negative energy, which nobody's figured out how to create yet.


    ...phil
  • I have to wonder if experimenting with wormholes on our one and only livable planet (for the moment) is really a good idea.

    What would happen if someone creates a wormhole here and since it would be centered around our planet, could conceivably trap us in and deposit our planet in a completely different area of space. What would we do then? Hope that after creating the phenomena once that we could repeat the process in reverse and get us back?

    I am glad that we don't have that technology yet and I hope that when we do that people are cautious enough not to risk the entire plant just for their own curiosity.

    Of course it may be really cool to have new stars to observe at night.

  • Vodka... Tequila... the choice is up to you!


  • Not to point out the obvious, but....
    Sir Isaac Newton, whos chair is still vacant at cambrage was an englishman.
    Heard of newtonian physics?

    ~zero


    insert clever line here
  • Constructing a wormhole wouldn't be that difficult if we could infact produce enough energy to do so. That and overcome the enormous effects that warping space to such a degree would impose. Consider the classical Einstien-Rosen bridge (i.e. wormholes/blackholes), under this postulation black holes are essentially wormholes with one end. Stuff goes in but doesn't come out. Either way, the space around a black hole warps the same way the space around a wormhole would. Assuming you could create one, could you create a craft capable of withsanting the freakish forces exerted on it by the wormhole? or are we just hoping that there won't be any turbulence?

  • even a tiny wormhole is useful (Score:4)

    by Frederic54 ( 3788 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @06:41AM (#1135128) Journal
    for communication! if the wormhole is atomic-size, photons that are smaller than an atom, can pass thru the wormhole. We know how to make coherent light (laser), just aim right at the center of the wormhole (once one is discovered) and the laser will reappear at the other side. Using a "blinking" laser we could use some kind of morse to communicate with someone on the other side of the wormhole.
    --
    BeDevId 15453 - Download BeOS R5 Lite [be.com] free!
  • Remember that when you make a worm hole, you need to fold the negative matter into the positive matter, not knead! Kneading it will make your wormhole flatten when it cools, and it will be a bit too dense.

    -Effendi

  • ..and one thing I noticed: way too little math. I will grant that I did not look at the math closely, but have you ever read through any Astrophysics journal article that had more words than equations?

    Obviously having difficulty with his LaTeX equation skills. Either that or the rubber gloves are making it difficult to type :-)

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • Thoguh choosing our destination might become a problem, what if they were left around from the big bang, when the universe was really small?

    Of course, if we have to build them by manually going out there, we should probably build them as quickly as we can, so as not to let the universe expand a lot further before we decide it would be a good idea.....


    Grades, Social Life, Sleep....Pick Two.
  • What would be the effects of gravity on these things...

    or vice versa
  • i cannot access xxx.lanl.gov because the squid filter here does not like "xxx", for those of you in the same case, use this link [204.121.6.57]
    --
    BeDevId 15453 - Download BeOS R5 Lite [be.com] free!
  • How about everclear? Where would that take you? =)
    --
  • What would happen if someone creates a wormhole here and since it would be centered around our planet, could conceivably trap us in and deposit our planet in a completely different area of space. What would we do then? Hope that after creating the phenomena once that we could repeat the process in reverse and get us back?

    Um, nothing would happen. Or, rather, nothing that we would be aware of...
    Assuming that one could A) open a wormhole and B) open one large enough for earth to pass through, the resulting re-emergence of earth in a "different are of space" would in itself be enough to kill all life on the planet.
    maybe not all at once and maybe not because of the trip, but certainly the sudden loss of orbital/gravitational stability, not to mention loss of sunlight...

    yea, we'd die and not know anything about it....
    so, to all you budding Sisko's out there, leave it alone....

  • While it's great to see that work is going forward on these avenues of thought, there seems to be a number of sticky engineering prblems that need to be adressed before wormhole-hopping becomes a feasable mode of transport, even if the math proves correct.

    For instance: if the wormhole needs to be supported by "exotic matter" to remain stable, then what are the properties of this matter, especially with regards to interaction with the "mundane matter" that comprises us and our transportation & life support systems.

    If "exotic matter" is the antimatter version of granite, then a wormhole propped open with it is going to prove problematic as a medium to travel. Not only would it be quite solid, but it would explode quite spectacularly if you attempted to walk through it.

    Then there's the environment surrounding the wormhole entrace/exit to consider. Black Holes have such a steep gravity gradiant that they shred anything that comes near them well before the object enters the hole's event horizon. While a wormhole may not require black hole-levels of mass, and so may not have a signifigant gravity gradient, there will be a region of highly curved space near the location of the entrance/egress - what effects would that extreme spacial curvature have on a nearby physical object?

    And even if the wormhole does something as boring as emitting large amounts of hard radiation it may limit its usefullness. What good is the ability to hop thousands of light years in an instant, if the mouth of the thing must be located at least one light-year away from an inhabited planet?

    Given that we still have trouble building manned extreme-deep-water submersibles, I think it may be a little while yet before we're ready to engineer wormholes.

    Still, the math is cool though.

  • So...WRT the fusion process, how would one "make it grow large enough?"
  • The Cardassians are from the alpha quandrant, and in fact had previously occupied Bajor and DS9.

    It was the Dominion that came pouring through the wormhole.

    G'ul Dukat is dead (or at least he is in the series, I suppose you could argue he hasn't been born yet.)

    Plus I also think you have the stardate for the discovery of the wormhole wrong.

  • Re:Build a wormhole? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just speculation but I'd assume that it would be difficult to control the destination of the wormhole. That being the case, they may very well follow a course that is the same as other natural wormholes that result from violently energetic phenomena. Maybe a good place to send ones garbage but I suspect we won't want to put people in there. Vacation to Eta Carinae? Don't forget to pack sunglasses!

  • Ummmm.... to the morgue?

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • Gee, I can't imagine how the sun can keep burning for what seems like eternity without any air out there in space to feed the fire, so it must not be possible either! /sarcasm
  • Ok, maybe somebody with more physics beckground can explain this to me.

    Whenever I see a reference to wormholes, they are usually explained in terms of black holes, or something like that. So then to travel through a wormhole you would need to endure A LOT of gravity, right? In that case what use are they?

    Am I understanding right?
  • I would image that creating a wormole is akin to "splitting" space -- pulling apart a section and creating a bridge (extending thorugh the 4th dimension) from one "side" to another. Wow, that sounds like a lot of rubbish. Let me try again. Rubber sheet / 2-D space analogy: Pretend your chest is a 2-Dimensional universe (never mind that your body is a distorted torus). Pinch both your niplpes and pull them until you can make them touch each other in the middle. Hold them like that for a couple months until the skin between them grows together and your nipples merge into one. Now imagine the process in reverse and that's how you create a wormhole! I read some crazy sci-fi novel by Robert L. Forward (can't remember the title) about making wormholes with the help of crystalline creatures that excreted negative matter...oh and other weird stuff.
  • What are you smoking? 1.) The Big Bang Theory is the foremost candidate for the theory of how the universe first came into being 2.) Astronomy has NOTHING to do with God. Astronomers for the most part do not like to bring religion into their work. It is NOT anti-God.

    And another thing: when they say that distant galaxies are "billions" of light years away, how do they know? It's just light. Answer is: they don't. But don't let the astronomy establishment know I told you that. They'd bring me up in front of their Grand Astronomy Inquisitor and do God knows what to me.

    How do you *know* that Jesus wasn't a woman? Do you really? What? You say the bible tells you so? Why do you believe the bible? Well.. I'll tell you man, I'd be more scared of those Borg than judgement day! Those borg look like their some nasty people, oh and those vampires scare the hell out of me too! Beware and always carry a phaser with a rotating harmonic and put garlic on your windows and neck!

    Ok, here something that makes a little sense. You remember the Great Flood right? All those *holy* wars? Seems to me like the Gods (if there are any gods) are laughing their asses off at us while we sit here with our thumbs up our butts killing each other because we think our god has a bigger dick than your god. Even if they aren't laughing, then they would derive their power from us, in which case they would *want* us to beat the crap out of the other gods followers, than way the other god couldn't challenge them for lack of power! Either way you look at it, power-struggle or entertainment, if there are gods, we are nothing but toys to them.

  • Hmmm,
    Mercury, mars, most of the moons are probably too small to do something like this. But finally we have a use for Jupiter and Neptune... Grin.

    Any ideas what effects this would cause in the local solar-system? Gravity cause any problems if we start compressing the outer planets?

    Lando
  • One thing's for sure- it can't be that easy, since I don't even recall seeing any man-made wormholes in sci-fi shows like Star Trek.

    ---------------
  • No doubt, and don't think your family will get any sort of discount for you showing up pre-embalmed. Damn funeral directors will soak 'em for every cent they've got. Bastards.
  • Ummm, Stephen Hawking?
    True, us Brits haven't put a man in space yet; but we have had a woman in space, though...

    Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.

  • Not to point out the obvious, but....
    Sir Isaac Newton, whos chair is still vacant at cambrage was an englishman.
    Heard of newtonian physics?

    Stephen Hawking holds Newton's Chair at Cambridge.

    Simon
  • That's funny, cause I work down the hill at Sandia, and our stupid filter logs everything, so they'd do a reverse name lookup, and I'd still get busted for looking at dirty pictures on Governement computers!

    CSG_SurferDude

  • Creating negative energy (Score:4)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @07:14AM (#1135151) Homepage Journal
    Creating negative energy is simple: the average management meeting has more than enough to create a wormhole to Hell. I know. I go through one twice a week. Sometimes more.


    My hair is pointing, Dave. I can feel it....

  • I've never understood this fascination with going to Alpha Centauri. There's not likely to be much there (ob Bob the Angry Flower [angryflower.com]). Just 'cos it's nearby doesn't strike me as a particularly good reason.

    I mean, I live in Seattle, but you don't catch me going to Redmond, and that's not far. ;)

  • A SERIOUS Question (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    While I am intrigued by the idea of wormholes and do think they might exist, I still don't buy it when it comes to proving they are mathematically possible by General Relativity as Einstein himself didn't believe the theory of General Relativity was correct. I share that opinion and was hoping somebody could clarify.

    I remember somebody attributing this statement to Einstein: ``If two people are on two moving trains heading towards each other, each will see the other's watch moving slower than his own.'' This didn't make sense so I began dissecting relativistic theory in every way. The problem I have with it is best illustrated using Greene's light-clock/train example in Elegant Universe.

    Suppose you have two light clocks. These are two 100% reflective surfaces that bounce a photon back and forth vertically between the two plates. One is where you are and the other is on an unmoving train, and both are perfectly syncronized. Now it is assumed that light will move at a constant speed regardless of motion (the basic premise behind relativity), and that it cannot speed up or slow down. Now suppose that train is moving and we know the lightclock was syncronized before it started moving and we watch it now. Now, from our stationary standpoint we see the photon travelling at lightspeed but along an angle (since the plates change position and the photon is bouncing back and forth between the two plates). Because light cannot move faster than light speed, it appears that the lightclock on the train is ticking at a slower rate since it takes the photon longer to get to each plate because the photon is now longer traveling vertically from our vantage point. Assuming we had put a normal clock on board with the train, we know the watch would remain synced with the light clock, so basically, when the train speeds up, time must slow down. It was a very good example and I wish I could post the illustrations.

    However, the thought then occurred to me - if I speed up to catch up to the train or the train stops (no motion relative to me), the photon in the train's lightclock will never move faster than light, so the trains clock will never run faster than mine, though by eliminating relative motion they will again tick at the same frequency. However, from the train's vantage point, I would also move relative to the train symetrically to the path I saw the train take. In other words, to the observer on the train, I am moving and my light clock is running slow, and therefore my lightclock can never catch up to his. So if we stop and compare lightclocks, whose is running faster? Mine? His? Are they the same?

    Another example I have trouble with is suppose to crafts are moving towards each other at 75% the speed of light. Certainly possible if we were watching from a 3rd vantage point, but what about in those crafts? I can plainly see observer#3 zip past me at 75% the speed of light. Meanwhile the other craft is coming towards me at what appears to be 1.5 times the speed of light. What happens? Could somebody explain the expected outcome (what each observer would see regarding relative speed and time)? I'm not sure what to expect, but it does raise some interesting questions for me.

    Any way, I've been puzzling over these for some time. Answers would be heavily appreciated. Best I can figure, wormholes can't be mathematically proven using General Relativity since General Relativity doesn't seem to work... Or maybe I don't understand. Anyway, thanks.
  • For instance: if the wormhole needs to be supported by "exotic matter" to remain stable, then what are the properties of this matter, especially with regards to interaction with the "mundane matter" that comprises us and our transportation & life support systems.

    The main trait of "exotic matter" is that it has negative mass (i.e., gravity will cause exotic matter objects to repel each other). Keep in mind that there are no direct observations of it, but there are some indications that exotic matter could have been formed in the Big Bang.

    -Legion

  • IANAY (I am not awake yet) but I remember hearing once that space at a small enough scale is all made up of a quantum foam of billions of tiny wormholes and cul-du-sacs. Isn't it not so much a question of if these things are around as whether or not it's practical enough to just grab one of the infinite number of them in a given space and pry the mouth open with something?
  • I am getting rather sick of this. From the article:

    Krasnikov accepts that testing his claims by building a wormhole is far beyond present technology.

    RANT
    So, if I may be so blunt, what is the point? And why is this even called science?!?! Scientific method, I was taught when I was in school, involved coming up with a theory, then working to prove or disprove that theory by scientific research/experiment. The scientist here says flat out that there is no way to test this. So unless they changed the scientific method, I would file this under science fiction rather than science. But I guess it doesn't matter. Because the pseudo-scientist now has his paper published, and people are talking about it, which basically means he will probably recieve a grant from some organisation to continue his research. If you truly want to help humanity reach the stars, please support realistic endevors, which actually help get us there.
    /RANT

  • Making it to *Mars* would have a dramatic effect on interstellar travel. This sounds great but imagine how much we could learn if only we could put some of these arm-chair Jean Luc Picard's in space!

    I can see the papers now: "Sudden Decompression and Its Effects on Sedentary Viewers of Science Fiction Television".

    --

  • My problem with wormhole theories (Score:3)

    by frankie ( 91710 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @07:31AM (#1135158) Journal
    A question for deep physicists in the crowd.

    Wormhole papers always make an assumption that bothers me: that the distance you need to travel inside the wormhole is negligible. Or that if you move the ends of the hole away from each other, the length of the tunnel won't increase as well. Why does anyone consider that reasonable?

    The standard simplification of wormhole illustration is a rubber sheet representing 2-dimensional space. To do a wormhole, the author invariably folds the entire sheet in half, so that Point A and Point B line up perfectly, then pokes a little tube through to join them.

    IMO, the universe is more likely to follow a different geometry -- perhaps a spheroid. The surface distance from Baltimore to Singapore is about 12000 miles. But if you could make a "wormhole" that tunnels direct from here to there, it would be ... just under 8000 miles. Gee, 1/3rd off, what tremendous savings! Now we can travel interstellar distances easily.

    So please tell me why I'm completely off base here.
  • Thanks - i tried, really i did, but when DS9 became a soap opera i gave up.. it was a great show though


    insert clever line here
  • It's Proxima Centauri, not Alpha
  • Take a blank piece of paper. Put two marks on it at opposite ends. Crumple the paper in such a way that the two marks are touching each other. Now imagine that you could go from mark A to mark B: when the paper is flat, the shortest distance between them is a straight line. When the paper is crumpled, the shortest distance is no distance at all, because the marks are touching. It's just a matter of understanding mathematics in differing dimensions.

    When you crumple the paper, what's between the two points? The same thing that's between the ends of a wormhole: nothing.

    Since I'm a mathematician and not a physicist: I know this is simplified. Physicists, feel free to expand on it. :P

    -Legion

  • Which part of Boise? I'm currently out towards Meridian, and the storm just passed us over. No wormholes here. Bummer (though the damn things feel funny in my paws :-). Of course, some people think Boise is so backwards that you need a workmhole to get here!

    Glad to see another Idahoan here! Meow!



  • Intergalactic travel would be easily possible if we had such power to create wormholes. Babylon 5 often displayed craft that could generate temporary jump points (wormholes)...this is a neat idea. But as far as I understand, doesn't the science say that wormholes would have a passage size of about 6 ft. diameter? I remember Stephen Hawking talking about this and he was explaining how acording to current theory, no crafts could pass through a wormhole because of the size. Not to mention the fact that you might be splattered to mush. ;)
    I guess if there was a way to generate huge ones, then we could do it..... Only time and discovery will tell. :)

    I profess no strong knowledge on this subject...I just have dabbled in it when I see something regarding it. I find it intriguing. :) I'm a girl that likes science. GASP! ^_~

    -Kat ^_^

  • 6 foot in diameter would easily allow a human in a space suit to travel through, provided the environment inside the wormhole doesn't rip him to shreds ;)
  • IMO, the universe is more likely to follow a different geometry -- perhaps a spheroid. The surface distance from Baltimore to Singapore is about 12000 miles. But if you could make a "wormhole" that tunnels direct from here to there, it would be ... just under 8000 miles. Gee, 1/3rd off, what tremendous savings! Now we can travel interstellar distances easily.

    So please tell me why I'm completely off base here.

    Because your example involves the difference between going around a 3-D object or going through the object (but still in 3 dimensions). Wormholes distort space in four dimensions, though: if you took the earth and folded it in 4-D, you can make Baltimore and Singapore touch each other.

    -Legion

  • It *can* be tested... sort of.

    It can't be tested directly. In other words, you can't go out tomorrow and build yourself a wormhole and see if it's stable. What you *can* do is determine what this theory relies on - what types of matter does it require, the properties of that matter, the implications it has on other theories, and so on. In other words, few theories exist by themselves - they're the end results of "chains" of theories.

    As time goes by, we find experimental evidence for many things. Sometimes it's macroscopic evidence (although not directly photographed, there's enough other types of evidence that black holes are pretty much considered physical proven objects), and other times it's microscopic evidence (such as the recent evidence that neutrinos may have mass after all).

    By using these bits of evidence as building blocks, we can test the chains of a particular theory. By disproving - or failing to disprove - the theories a new theory rests on, then you can go a long way towards testing these ideas.

    Furthermore, the key phrase you need to be aware of is "present technology." What may be beyond our current technology may not be beyond our future technology - should we wait until technology catches up to speculate about the universe? In many ways, it's the speculation and striving to determine the inner workings of the universe that dictate our technology and the direction it takes. In many instances, the theory has to come before the physical implementation - I sincerely doubt anyone could've built a nuclear reactor before understanding something about the way nuclear reactions occur.

  • I am as smart as everyone else on the planet [3 from star, 1 moon] as I put out a theory and attempt to give my idea. As for the comment from the AC, good. All these 'throies' work, in a sense. Put them to math, it CAN be done. But, that is just math, anything can be 'proven'.

  • Our examples are too simplified. The "rubber sheet" example reduces 3 dimensions to 2. Your tunneling through the earth example reduces 2 dimensions to 1. Granted, there's not much savings. But then consider that mathematicisns posit space having 11 dimensions. A wormhole would make "folds" in directions we can't comprehend in order to bring the two points together.

  • Oh Wormholes... a step closer to deep space 9, but still far far away. Anyways, I wouldn't choose Alpha Centauri for a vacation, isn't that a wannabe real star, aka a brown dwarf? I'd think I'd go to Beta Pictoris or something like that.
  • I never saw Event Horizon, but they apparently knew what they were talking about. As I said, it's a matter of understanding math in differing dimensions. The paper crumples in 3-space; wormholes crumple 3-space through 4-space. If you don't see the relevance, you need to learn more math.

    -Legion

  • Alpha Centauri is similar to our sun except it is a double star system (Alpha and Beta), I think you a confusing it with Proxima Centauri which orbit both Alpha and Beta. Proxima is I believe closer to us than Alpha at this time.
  • I really believe it is possible these things exist. However: ~Finding one might be dangerous because the existance is almost the same as a quantumsingularity.(black hole). ~Creating one might even be more dangerous because you need lots of energy. ~Travelling towards one is not so interesting because of the laws of relativity, your time will propably stop completely so it will take faster (according to the observer on earth anyway) swimming to alpha centaury.
  • Not counting the invention of the heliograph by the Greeks (I'm assuming you're discounting data streams composed entirely of letters), isn't that kind of the whole point of fiber optics?
    Geek-grrl-in-training

    "I live in Boise, but I don't have a lawn, I feel cheated out of my wormholes."
  • Quantum singularity? You've been watching too much Star Trek.

  • If you want... (Score:3)

    by Graymalkin ( 13732 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @08:39AM (#1135175)
    quantum travel look to your nearest electron, they have a funny little ability to tunnel through space to be anyplace they want to be. In an S-orbital an electron is only around the atom 90 some percent of the time, the rest of the time it's off galavanting in the Andromeda galaxy or someplace. Quantum physics is fun!
  • Ummm.. if I was driving my car at the speed of light and I turned on my headlights what would happen?

    I have wondered the same thing that you are asking, and the answer is that my headlights would work normally, ie, the light would shoot from my headlights at the speed of light. Now I think that most of it has to do with your frame of reference. As with your train example the two clocks are in different frames of reference and therefore there will be differences between them, because just because the train is moving, don't forget that the other clock is also moving (earth spinning, movement within the galaxy, blah, blah, blah). It's all relative.

    This stuff is hard, but not nearly as hard as real relativity. I mean if the person is your cousins aunt's daughter's sister's husband's long-lost twice removed cousin. Now who the hell is that? I tell you, you had a real family reunion, that's relativity.

  • An executive summary of the "debate." (Score:3)

    by Claudius ( 32768 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @08:45AM (#1135177)
    I intend to provide a service to the /. community by summarizing the "debate," if I may be so bold as to characterize it as such, regarding this and every other wormhole-related post:

    There are basically four camps, none of which does anything except rehash old articles from the wormhole post the week before, or the week before that, or the week before that, or.... Any semblance of dialogue is illusionary; apparent polite discourse is actually just one person posting under two different names in an attempt to boost his or her Karma.

    Group 1: (scientists, people who use fancy science-sounding words and appear moderately intelligent, people who have half a clue what physics is) (a) Yawn. Been there, done that. Aren't we stuck in some kind of closed, time-like loop? (b) 'Welcome to the "Wormhole Theory of the Month" club. Thank you for your kind donation. Now kindly leave your critical thought at the door and let's all group hug. Did I mention we are going to go IPO?' (c) If you can make wormholes, you can violate causality, the second law of thermodynamics, the Uncertainty Principle, and Robert's Rules of Order. (d) You can't make a beowulf cluster out of these things.

    Group 2: (skeptical laypeople who haven't a clue what the physics is, but are ignorant enough not to realize how little they know, people who try to use big, important-sounding science words but haven't a clue what they mean) This can't work because: (a) Just what the **** is a "closed time-like loop" anyway, you pretentious twerp! (b) relativity is wrong (let me tell you why). (c) Scientists don't know what they are talking about. (d) I saw on the Discovery Channel that this wasn't possible. (e) A beowulf cluster of these things would be lame since there's no Open Source support for wormholes.

    Group 3: (agathistic laypeople who haven't a clue what the physics is, but are ignorant enough not to realize how little they know, people who instinctively distrust those who use big, important-sounding science words) (a) He must be right since a few well-known historical figures were right about something and they were told they were wrong. (Of course I'll conveniently forget about the umteen thousands who were told they were wrong and actually turned out to be wrong). (b) How do you KNOW he isn't right? You don't, do you! You can't prove it so shut up and allow ME to speak about something I know nothing about. (c) Wouldn't it be great if this worked? This is just like Star Trek! It's so cool! (d) Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things!!!!

    Group 4: (trolls, Republicans) (a) JonKatzSux(tm)! (b) OpenSourceSux(tm)! (c) I wonder what would happen if I had a wormhole in my pocket and poured hot grits down my pants. (d) BeowulfClustersSux(tm)!

    Anything that cannot be classified into these four groups may safely be moderated down as being "Offtopic."
  • I am in no way an expert, but here is how I think it works.
    The problem is that when you accelerate you system is not inertial anymore an special relativity does not hold. According to general relativity, in a non-inertial system (or in presence of a gravitational field, which is the same) light can, in fact be accelerated. When you catch up to the train or the train stops eighter you or the train are accelerating. Let say that the train is coming to a halt (so your ref. system is inertial), according to your system the light still travels at a constant light, but in the train ref system the light get accelerated and bends the same way it would in presence of a gravitational field pulling torwards the front (when you break you feel a force pushing you forward remember?).

    Hope it helps
  • Just to add to an earlier comment... read Stephen Baxter's "Timelike Infinity" - this is hard SF that covers the issues with this type of wormhole and how you can use them as time machines.

    His wormholes also need negative energy density to prop them open by initially you 'threading' a quantum tunnel and expanding it up to macro size. You then can cart off one end of the hole on a relativistic trip, bring it back to it's original twin and presto! your own time machine. One porblem though is that you can never travel back to a point before the holes were threaded up... AFAIK this was Hawking's explanation as to why we weren't flooded with tourists from the future yet....
  • Event Horizon.....good movie, got bad @ the end. The 'foam ball' example works. The part about 'bending space' gets to me. Sure, enough gravity ...you can do anything. Take the foam ball, point A and point B [being exact oppistie side] and squish the ball, everything [people/planets between the two] will be effected. So, at the cost of interstellar travel, we will be squishing everything between. Subspace is the way to travel. Hell, light speed, but ...that leads to other stuff. Gimme a few billion [gates?] and I make it work. We should be doing manned space flight to planets by now...nope, just loosing these stuffs out there [mars]. Hasta D~y
  • I like your idea of Marklar. I some ways this Marklar could lead us really to other Marklar for as you allready said for the benefit of all Marklar. (Starvin Marvin in Space is cool!!!! *g*)
  • (S)He's refering to the good old-fashioned way black holes are created: fusion is the only known reasonable process--as in stars--which can support the infall pressure of gravity. Black-hole-destined stars in some sense _start_ with that requisite amount of matter; since we don't have a lab that big (with that much mass) to begin with, you'd have to start with something smaller, and acrete matter onto it in some way. In the meantime, you'd need that fusion power (outward thermal pressure) to support it as it gained mass so it didn't begin collapsing before it reached that critical mass.

    This assumes you're going to use gravity to do the squishing. (a good assumption, as there's no force that we are capable of harnessing to do this ourselves) The other part he mentioned was trying to "compress an already existing mass"--again, kinda hard if it's < a few solar masses. (If you do come up with a harnessable energy source greater than that of the world, however, let us know, we'll want to patent it....oops, faux pas? :} ) Though he was saying that any mass can theoretically be made a black hole. Since gravity goes as the inverse square root of the density, you just have to squish it enough so that gravity can overwhelm all EM/quantum forces. _You_ could be a black hole, too! (Batteries not included) You'd have to become a lot smaller than .7 inches, though....

    Phun with (impractical) physics
  • Or just tell your spouse that because of Quake and coding, (s)he's not getting any for the next week. "Oh, and I forgot to take out the trash and pick up the your parents at the airport; would you mind doing that for me?"

    :}
  • You don't need to construct a mirror wormhole. From all that I've read about these things, having such a wormhole implies that there will be 2 entrances.
  • My question about wormholes:

    If we're creating these things out of a near-dozen dimensions, how the heck do we send our own little 3D selves through them with any semblance of direction?

  • The premise of the Inflationary model is that initially, the Universe was in a "false vacuum" state where the energy density of empty space was high, but this state was only psuedo-stable. Thanks to quantum tunneling effects at some point this state could "tunnel" down into the true vacuum state we see today, thus releasing all of this energy into the Universe and driving its exponential expansion for a period of 10^-32 sec.

    The "matter" (most likely in the form of free quarks, gluons and various bosons) was already present from the Big Band event rather than being created through inflation.

    Similarly, if you inflate the interior of a wormhole, unless you put energy into it then you are simply decreasing the energy density, making the creation of new exotic matter less likely rather than more likely.

  • No, you would just decrease the ammount of energy in that object. The rate of energy change (Delta E I think) would be negative, but that's it. If you were correct, a refrigerator would create negative energy inside of it. And considering that my fridge just causes chinese food to mold, not warp through space and time, I'm going to say no.

    Disclaimer- I took physics three years ago and got a C, but I think I'm right on this.

    -B

  • Re:My problem with wormhole theories (Score:3)

    by K space ( 72153 ) on Thursday April 13, 2000 @11:09AM (#1135196)
    Actually it's a more a question for light-hearted physicists in the crowd; anyone doing serious physics work and without a sense of humor isn't reading this discussion. (I don't have a doctorate yet, so I can talk about them in the third person--and I have the luxury of answering this.:)

    I may not be able to convince you of an answer with just hand-waving, (w/o a mess of formal mathematics) which is really what this all is, but well, neither of the first couple of replies is quite right I think; here's the best I can say:

    It's true that 2D-3D, 3D-4D comparisons are not exactly analogous in every way, but the significant part is more that wormholes create a distortion--locally (you're not "folding" the whole worldsheet/universe)--in spacetime such that the distance along a wormhole's wall is not zero, but pretty short. In your earth/tunnel analogy, the earth hasn't changed/distorted any, and, well, there's really nothing analagous to the dirt dug up. :) The 2D surface of the earth is usually compared to our 3D universe; if you think of the surface as first flat with a grid drawn on it, and then distort it by placing a mass on it, the grid lines will distort or "stretch," if you like. The wormhole is like when the object is so dense it pushes the surface down so far the grid lines on the "walls" of the wormhole are effectively "infinitely" far apart. If this distortion connects up with another place on the surface, you have a wormhole, where just normally going one ("stretched") grid unit gets you really far.

    Supersymmetric theories and their extensions tend to only work if space has, say, 10 dimensions, or 26. Obviously, by looking around, we can tell that these "extra" dimensions don't manifest themselves macroscopically. Where they "are" is a subject of speculation in this theoretical work.

    Anyway, most of this is just hand-waving, which is why most physicists don't even glance at this subject unless they're actually doing formal work in it. Very little in this subject is "reasonable" or makes sense, without the massive formalisms that the ideas are based on. I find it interesting that (almost all) otherwise brilliant coders and the like latch on to some pretty strange ideas about the physical world they live in. I've been coding for long enough to know this; and I've done physics for enough years to know that I don't understand this stuff (theoretical cosmology and the like), and probably never will. You (anyone) may think you are starting to understand a lot of it, but, trust me, you don't. :) (It has nothing to do with you intrinsically.)

    This phenomenon helps explain many of Hemos's strange science posts. :) Not to say that you shouldn't keep waving your hands (you just won't be doing any real/useful physics by it); while this subject itself is not "Stuff that Matters" much, it's fun, and maybe that matters enough.

    $0.02

  • In an S-orbital an electron is only around the atom 90 some percent of the time, the rest of the time it's off galavanting in the Andromeda galaxy or someplace.

    The probablity of finding an electron some distance from the nucleus of a hydrogen atom (I am picking hydrogen because the math is easy, but it will give you an idea of magnitudes for all elements). Is given by the integral of the wave function squared over the volume you are looking at.

    If we do this for hydrogen over the distance 529 Angstroms to infinity, we get a probability of 1.52x10^-863, a very small number. Thus, while the electron can theoretically be found anywhere, chances are that you will find the electron comfortablly snuggled up with its nucleus in the ground state (at least on the astronomical length scales you are talking about).

  • >Assuming you could create one, could you create a craft capable of withsanting the freakish
    >forces exerted on it by the wormhole? or are we just hoping that there won't be any turbulence?

    Actually, as I understand it, this is where most of the current theory is focusing. It's believed that quantum wormholes (i.e. *very* small) exist in some interesting quantity. The trick is to "inflate" one to a useful size. The tiny detail often omitted is that a "useful" size isn't the size of the ship, but rather big enough for the forces to be sufficently weak in the center that a ship could conceivably survive. The sizes postulated are ludicrous -- in the millions of kilometers, I think.

    This inflating process requires "negative energy" (which I need better drugs to understand) in obscene quantities. The article seems to imply a theoretical wormhole that is somehow self-sustaining -- the wormhole itself, directly or indirectly, generates enough negative energy to maintain its size.

    Man my hands are tired from all this furious waving.
  • > Black Holes have such a steep gravity gradiant that they shred anything that comes near them well before the object enters the hole's event horizon. While a wormhole may not require black hole-levels of mass, and so may not have a signifigant gravity gradient, there will be a region of highly curved space near the location of the entrance/egress - what effects would that extreme spacial curvature have on a nearby physical object?

    Actually, the more massive a black/worm hole you have, the gentler the gravity gradient is at the event horizon, iirc. I don't remember the exact math, but I'm fairly sure that's how it works.

    *scribbles furiously for awhile*

    The Event Horizon is the distance from the black hole at which the escape velocity is the speed of light. Tide is the difference in pull - falling feetfirst, the black hole pulls harder on your feet than your head, so the victim turns into spaghetti.

    Acceleration due to gravity is inversely proportional to the square of distance to the singularity. Tide is inversely proportional to the cube. The greater the mass, the less tide there is for a certain strength of gravity, since the gravity well spreads out over a larger space. IIRC, at the event horizon, the tide is far weaker for a bigger, more massive hole.

  • Don't worry...from the looks of things you're way ahead most of the posters today...

    If you want to check out a really good, credible source of physics information on the net, I suggest the Usenet Physics FAQ [ucr.edu] if you just can't be bothered to pick up a textbook.

    Both questions of yours are really close to a general question known as the Twin Paradox. Basically, who's clock moves slower (or who's actually ageing slower)? The incredibly short answer is that time in the train's frame of reference, for the period that it moves at a relativistic speed compared to you, travels slower compared to time in your frame. In other words, after you accelerate (or the train slows down) for you to compare, your clock will be ahead.

    The answer to your second question lies in the fact that the spacetimes of the two ships are fundamentally different from each other. 0.75c is a measurement of speed in your reference, and not the other spaceship's. Therefore, at relativistic speeds, vectors don't add normally. The other spaceship moving towards you is going 0.96c in your frame of reference. (Work out v =((v1-v2)/(1-(v1v2/c^2))) where v1 = 0.75c, and v2 = -0.75c.)

    Enough rambling...the FAQ should answer any other questions you or anybody else might have.

    telnet://bbs.ufies.org
    Trade Wars Lives


    telnet://bbs.ufies.org
    Trade Wars Lives
  • No, there's actually a concept of 'negative' energy, which is not the same as a negative delta in positive energy. I'm not clear on the difference myself, but there *is* a difference.


    ...phil
  • I see a slight problem here.

    Saying things like "wormholes makes it easy to travel between distant parts of the universe" is as dumb as saying "going into a black hole makes time go faster" (or if it was slower, or if that only applied to an outside observer, or whatever).

    The thing is, if you go *near* a black hole you're DEAD. Then you don't care about if time stops or if the universe ends within seconds.

    Wouldn't going through a wormhole be the same thing?

    I mean, send an apple in at one end, get a slight increase in radiation in the other...

    Interesting theoretical ideas, but I want to keep my molecules in the shape they're in.

    (sorry for not knowing more about wormholes)
  • And? I wasn't saying every electron takes a vacation out to M100 every second. COnsidering the number of electrons in the universe is somewhere about a googleplex to the power of a googleplex to another googleplex it is fairly safe to assert that There is a decent number of electrons not existing anywhere near their atom at any given moment.
  • If they can be moved, you can turn one into a time machine (giving causality the finger) by accelerating one end to relativistic speeds and taking it on a trip, as noted in the actual paper (but ignored by both the New Scientist and BBC articles).

    What always amazed me about this discussion is that many scientists, who are trained to believe that nothing is automatically impossible just because it doesn't fit common sense, and who are used to dealing with quantum mechanical effects that absolutely do not match any kind of common sense mental construction, will nevertheless make the statement (which you didn't make, ckd, you just reminded me of it) that "wormholes would mean time travel, which violates causality, and therefore wormholes can't possible be used to transmit people or information in any way, ipso facto".

    Bullshit; if the math says they can, then they can. If the math doesn't say they can, they can't. Period. Causality doesn't enter into it.

    We don't have all the math yet to know for sure. People who try to develop that understanding shouldn't have to take the kind of crap that they get from a certain segment of the scientific community.

    Remember, Einstein wasted a lot of his time denying aspects of Quantum Physics that he'd have been a lot better off working WITH, instead of against. Yes, the quest to disprove a theory is a valuable one, but when you reach a certain point you're not being thorough anymore, you're just being stubborn and depriving the world of the insights you could have made doing some real work.

    How much better off would the world have been with the good work Einstein could have been doing instead? Maybe we'll never know.

  • COnsidering the number of electrons in the universe is somewhere about a googleplex to the power of a googleplex to another googleplex it is fairly safe to assert that There is a decent number of electrons not existing anywhere near their atom at any given moment.

    Assuming that there are an equal number of protons and electrons in the universe, (which I would imagine is true, at least to a few orders of magintude), we can guess that there are somewhere around 3*10**80 electrons in the universe. This is far less than the multi-power of googleplex non-sense you are talking about.

    This gives a probability of 4.56*10**-783 of finding any electron, in the whole freaking universe more than 529 Angstroms from its nucleus. (Assuming Z=1 and all the electrons are in the ground state. Even if lifting these conditions increase the probablity by a few hundred orders of maginitude, we are still talking about something that for all practical purposes just doesn't happen, even if it is "allowed" to happen by quantum mechanics.)

  • This Republican bows deeply and with great humility to your post. Superb!

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