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Wormholes? Maybe.
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.
"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...
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The original New Scientist article is online, as is the full paper 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.
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
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.
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!
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
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"
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
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.
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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.)
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.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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
sig?
...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."
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
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.
Brought to you by: "Al"toids - the curiously weird mint.
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?
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.
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"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
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"Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
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.
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
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.
My hair is pointing, Dave. I can feel it....
www.eFax.com are spammers
I can see the papers now: "Sudden Decompression and Its Effects on Sedentary Viewers of Science Fiction Television".
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The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
A question for deep physicists in the crowd.
... just under 8000 miles. Gee, 1/3rd off, what tremendous savings! Now we can travel interstellar distances easily.
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
So please tell me why I'm completely off base here.
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
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.
Quantum singularity? You've been watching too much Star Trek.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
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!
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
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."
(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.
:} ) 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....
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?
Phun with (impractical) physics
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.
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).
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 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.
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Trade Wars Lives
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Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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)
It's 11pm, do you know what your deamons are up to?
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.)