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Space

Physicists Release Step-by-Step Instructions For Building a Wormhole (space.com) 73

Posted by EditorDavid from the across-the-universe dept.
schwit1 quotes Space.com: A recent paper, published to the preprint journal arXiv on July 29, has found a way to build an almost-steady wormhole, one that does collapse but slowly enough to send messages — and potentially even things — down it before it tears itself apart. All you need are a couple of black holes and a few infinitely long cosmic strings.
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Physicists Release Step-by-Step Instructions For Building a Wormhole More

Physicists Release Step-by-Step Instructions For Building a Wormhole

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  • The recipe is easy ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @03:08PM (#59147098)

    It's one part Plutonic Quarks, one part Cesium, and a bottle of water.

    Oh wait, that's for Dark Matter -- no really, try it.

    • Let me fish around in my junk room . . .

      All you need are a couple of black holes and a few infinitely long cosmic strings.

      OK, my USB cable box has the infinitely long cosmic strings.

      And another box has PCMCIA Ethernet, IBM Token Ring and ISDN cards in it. So they could classify as Black Holes.

      Where is the rest of the recipe . . . ?

  • This is not science (Score:5, Informative)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @03:12PM (#59147104)

    Science is falsifiable, i.e., it can be proven wrong given the case. This is not science.

    • Re:This is not science (Score:5, Funny)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @03:26PM (#59147148)

      Years ago I worked in a research lab. The guy who ran the lab had, in his younger days, had a rubber stamp made with the phrase “This is not science” which he purportedly would use on particularly bad papers which had been sent to him for peer review.

    • This is falsifiable, for example we could find that gravity does not work according to their assumptions. They do assume the existence of substances that don't actually exist, but that is still falsifiable. For example, you could do some math and find that even if they did have unobtanium, they still couldn't build a wormhole. Unfalsifiable would be if they said, "you are really just my dream." there is literally no way to test that because even if you devised a test that worked, the counterargument is "I d

    • Science, but useless science (Score:5, Informative)

      by Roger W Moore ( 538166 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @05:14PM (#59147484) Journal

      Science is falsifiable, i.e., it can be proven wrong given the case.

      Technically this is science because, at least in theory, it can be proven wrong even though we do not yet have the technology to check the prediction. This is often the case: it took over 100 years to develop the technology to show that gravitational waves exist after Einstein predicted them.

      However, it does seem somewhat useless since it first requires an infinite cosmic string. So it seems to have merely replaced one almost-impossibility with another. The only way it might turn out to be useful is if it inspires someone else to find a more probable/easier to create situation.

      • However, it does seem somewhat useless since it first requires an infinite cosmic string.

        That's only to make the whole system work as described.

        In order to prove it could work, all you need is a medium length cosmic string long enough to dip into the black hole. Then you can monitor if the charge of the black hole changes as predicted, possibly also monitor the vibration of the cosmic string is as described.

        So it might only be thousand years or so before we can validate it...

        Lots of other reasons to want a

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 )

          In order to prove it could work, all you need is a medium length cosmic string long enough to dip into the black hole. Then you can monitor if the charge of the black hole changes as predicted

          Well I suppose one could prove the concept has some merit using "just" a really long string. But if it's physically impossible to use an infinite string, then ultimately it's not fully testable.

          Can somebody think of a scenario where one could obtain or tame in existing infinite string? Assuming one could tap the energy

          • Can somebody think of a scenario where one could obtain or tame in existing infinite string?

            Yes, it's quite simple really. All you need to do is create your own universe and, if they exist at all, they should form naturally.

      • This is often the case: it took over 100 years to develop the technology to show that gravitational waves exist after Einstein predicted them.

        60 to 70 years actually.

        Einstein's GR was published in various papers up to about 1915.

        In about 1975 astronomers discovered a pair of mutually orbiting neutron stars (one a pulsar), and careful timing of their individual rotations and mutual orbits showed by 1982 or so that the system was losing energy which wasn't coming out as light (we'd have seen it), magnetism

        • True, but that is indirect evidence and the Nobel was not awarded for discovering gravitational waves, only "for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation.". Seeing behaviour that is consistent with a phenomenon is an important discovery but it is still not the same as actually discovering the phenomenon itself.

          We see lots of evidence consistent with Dark Matter out in the universe but nobody would claim that we have discovered Da

    • All they need now is to get the Flogrondifier in phase with the Kersitritron, and adjust the plasma ionic quantum frequency to 23.340Thz, and the azimuth of the particle nuclear beam to 40 degrees and tie it into the Lazerphasetransmogrifier, and they can do what they need to do easy peasy!

        Every respectable physicist knows this!

    • ... you couldn't build the box for "Schrödingers cat" either, yet it was a contribution to science, since it provoked people to think. Another great example is the EPR paradox, that started as an attempt to poke holes into quantum mechanics. It led to the formulation of the Bell inequality which was then experimentally tested.

      It's completely ok and scientific to "play around" with physical theories and see what comes out of it. If nothing else it might reveal a weakness/gap/inconsistency in the theory.

  • If EditorDavid and schwit1 think they did, they're ignorant.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by novakyu ( 636495 )

      Oh, it's much worse. They can't possibly be stupid enough to actually think what they wrote in the headline. They just thought they would write a clickbait headline, because that's all Slashdot is good for, apparently now.

  • Can anything in a universe that is not infinitely old be infinitely long?

    • Re:"Inifnitely long cosmic strings"? (Score:4)

      by K. S. Kyosuke ( 729550 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @04:17PM (#59147328)
      Waiting for Half-Life 3?

    • Re:"Inifnitely long cosmic strings"? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @04:38PM (#59147400)

      yes, the extent of the whole universe (including what is outside observable) might be infinite with infinite amount of matter. it's an open question. the "big bang" doesn't mean everything expanded from 1 point, that idea is long dead in cosmology, the "big bang" is a moment before which known physics doesn't apply.

      • For certain values of "infinite".

        • space and matter without finite limit in all directions beyond the observable universe is what cosmologists are wondering and can't answer. We already know the present visible universe is less than one part in 10 to the 23rd of what existed earlier.

    • Is anything in the universe not infinitely old?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        The universe itself, perhaps?

        It's only been expanding for a finite amount of time, and as such is still finite in size (approx 55billion light years if I recall correctly).

        Which is vastly different from being infinite.

        And I realize that I am only talking about the observable universe here, but to talk about things outside of the observable universe as if they could ever influence anything inside of it is pointless.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mark-t ( 151149 )
          Fact checking myself... the universe is 92 billion light years across. Not sure where I got 55 billion from

  • Those dudes are back (Score:3)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @03:38PM (#59147196) Journal

    All you need are a couple of black holes and a few infinitely long cosmic strings.

    There was a Saturday morning kid show called Wonderbug. Whenever they were in a jam, one dude would say something like, "I have a plan, but it requires a spring, 2 horses, the Osmonds, and 30 lbs of dental floss."

  • Experimentation has shown the longest time a wormhole has remained stable was 38 minutes. There's been some dispute on this as wormholes were timed to be stable longer but this was only in the presence of strong gravitational forces in which time dilation effects likely extended this time to an observer outside of this field.

    While matter may pass in only one direction there is the possibility of two way communications by means of electromagnetic forces influencing the event horizon and propagating through the wormhole with a delay so short as to allow for casual conversation by radio.

    The event horizon has been able to be contained with a ring like device made of a super conducting and highly dense element.

  • I am sure unicorn horn would work just as good as infinitely long cosmic strings.

    • just like the Alcubierre drive with its "high negative density exotic matter" that so many go gaga over, no it can't be built with anything that actually exists.

      Zero evidence for strings, after jacking around for decades the string theorists have nothing. They've essentially proven the well known fact that an infinite number of functions can be used to go through any finite set of points on a graph. Nothing useful, nothing testable.

      • "just like the Alcubierre drive with its "high negative density exotic matter" that so many go gaga over, no it can't be built with anything that actually exists."

          Oh great, another thing for the mental cases to go bananas over and lose whatever is left of their tiny bit of sanity

          We really need to speed up the reinstitutionalization process.

  • First, read all instructions before beginning.

  • The creation of black holes can't create wormholes. Solutions to einstein and rosen's equations can have wormholes when "exotic matter", having negative energy density and negative spacetime pressure are used.... stuff that doesn't exist.

    it's all bullshit, mental masturbation about things never observed

  • MacGyver would be able to do it with two tennis balls painted black and a rubber band.

  • is a couple kilo's of plutonium nyborg.

  • Easy (Score:3)

    by rlp ( 11898 ) on Sunday September 01, 2019 @05:16PM (#59147486)

    Step 1: Find a large metal ring buried in Egypt
    Step 2: Move ring to Cheyenne Mountain NORAD complex
    Step 3: ...

    • I can't wait until they come out with the recipe for making "Chopped Unicorn and Minced Leprechaun Salad"!

    • Step 4: Prophet! (A little Egyptian joke there)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Scoldog ( 875927 )

      Step 1: Find a large metal ring buried in Egypt

      On the flip side, may as well check Antarctica while you are at it.

    • Oh, damn, now I know some more back story (front story? whatever) to that "I fell asleep with my head on the keyboard" telly program. Stargrate Ad Nauseam, wasn't it?

      Well, I still haven't seen an episode, and still have no intention to.

  • ..."The Witches Catalog" from the 1980s. You could order all kinds of cool stuff such as personal force fields, and all it would cost you are a couple bat wings and some flea tears.

  • ...a use for those black holes I've been collecting. I just have to find someone with a few infinitely long cosmic strings.

  • We can send actual Packets, and not just Data Packets!
    This beats Quantum Key-Exchange + AES!

    I'm sure I can find a couple of Black Holes in the DarkNet if I wanted, but I'm not sure about Infinitely-Long Cosmic-Strings...

    I'll start on eBay...

  • FYI (Score:1)

    by louzer ( 1006689 )
    Last 30 years of predictions about supersymmetry, and string theory has not been observed in LHC
  • We need to concede that multidimensional energies exist and are quantifiable if comprehended. This is why Pi is undefinable in our world. Canâ(TM)t define a 2D object in a 4D existence. What will blow your mind is whether or not the 3D world changed as soon as we discovered time. This is SchrÃdingerâ(TM)s cat all over again.

  • "All you need are a couple of black holes and a few infinitely long cosmic strings." They will be sold out fast...

  • Expect one to be available from your local IKEA soon.

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