WORMHOLES?

[cptwright 1]

ok, now i know im really gonna regret the headache i get from reading the answers to this, but i really wanna know. what, if any proof is there of actual wormholes, or is it all just theory? i am refering to reality not trek. or is it just a sci-fi thing. but as far as i recall there are actual theories and answers to this question. so master q and all you other brains, and anyone with ideas lets hear it thanks.

[Abakai2003 0]

Wormholes are a byproduct of the general theory of relativity. GR equasions say that it is posible to have a tunnle in spacetime that connects to another portion of space time.

 

heres a url that may help it's just a little bits about Kip Thorn (a leading pysisist and a true belever in the posability of time travel

 

Traversable Wormholes

[Xeroc 0]

ok, now i know im really gonna regret the headache i get from reading the answers to this,

Don't worry, I always try to make my explanations as painless as possible.

 

What, if any proof is there of actual wormholes, or is it all just theory? i am refering to reality not trek. or is it just a sci-fi thing. but as far as i recall there are actual theories and answers to this question. so master q and all you other brains, and anyone with ideas lets hear it thanks.

Yes, wormholes are not confined to sci-fi at all. While there is no direct proof (experimental or observational) of wormholes, many theories show they could exist. A wormhole is bacially, well this diagram should show it better:

It shows a wormhole between earth and sirius. In this wormhole the "space" is folded between earth and sirius to make it so earth and sirius are very close in the 4-D "hyperspace".

 

The main problem with wormholes is that they don't like to stay open - they naturally would open really quickly and close almost immediately (way too quickly for a ship to travel through). To keep them open we need to use something called "exotic matter" (the only reason it is calld exotic is because we have no experimental or observational evidence that it exists and it is completely unlike anything we have ever seen) "exotic matter", unlike normal matter, gives off anti-gravity and so could be used to literally hold the wormhole open while ships would travel through. If you have any questions feel free to ask me.

[cptwright 1]

would this "exotic matter" hold it open indefinately or not long enough to do whatcha gotta do and come back?

[ARMS 0]

"exotic matter", don't you mean dark matter?

[Lollypop 0]

This is what I found on the subject

 

As any science fiction fan knows, one of the most menacing and mysterious things in space is a wormhole. Wormholes are a possible consequence of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Einstein came up with the remarkable idea that mass warps space, and the bigger the mass, the more space will be bent. This strange conjecture was proved by Arthur Eddington in 1919, when he journeyed to the Amazon forest for the solar eclipse and proved that the Moon bent light from the Sun as it crossed in front. Theoretically, a wormhole could be formed when two or more massive bodies warp space and the fabric of space collides, forming a tunnel between distant places.

 

The easiest way to think about this is in two dimensions rather than three. Think of space as a piece of paper, which is bent over on itself. If a weight in put on top of the paper it will sag towards the centre. If there were another weight on the opposite side, then it would also sag towards the centre, if they eventually met then a wormhole would form, joining the two regions.

 

Although being sucked through the fabric of space does seem pretty menacing, wormholes would offer amazing possibilities to travel through space and time. Popping through a wormhole could bring distant galaxies to your doorstep. What's more, by doing this you are effectively travelling faster than the speed of light, and so by passing through a wormhole and back you could travel into the future.

 

No one knows whether wormholes exist let alone what would happen if you sent a spacecraft through them. If they do exist they could be very short-lived, and may not even survive long enough for a spacecraft to reach the other side. And if the spaceship did make it, its mass might cause the wormhole to snap shut, cutting the astronauts off for good.

[Lollypop 0]

More on the subject

 

Try here

[master_q 0]

Well it seems like I got the title of a person that is notorious for giving detailed and hard responses concerning physics. Sometimes I do give detailed answers to get a major point across or to defend my view point, but I try to give a direct and simple answer. However, I do not believe that one can fully appreciate a scenario or item in physics without more of a backbone understanding of the major concepts (And that’s one thing that is wrong with traditional physics courses).

 

The whole issue around Wormholes really developed with a problem Carl Sagan had (and he is one of my favorite scientists). You probably have seen the movie “Contact” or have read his book. In “Contact” he had a problem that he wanted to resolve and so he wrote a letter to Kip Thorne. Sagan wanted to send a person to a distance place within her lifetime and he did not want to violate special relativity. From special relativity we know that you can’t go faster then light using traditional means. Sagan asked if he could use a black hole to travel and Throne replied “no”. Then the idea of a wormhole came into science fiction and into physic.

 

So that’s the short version of the story of how wormholes came into existence. (It’s pretty interesting stuff!)

 

The Einstein-Rosen Bridge . . . .

When one looks into the Schwarzschild’s solutions to general relativity you can interpret and display a solution that connects two places in space. Hermann Weyl was actually the first one to really speculate that they might exist by looking at the solutions of some equations (he specifically looked at a sub-branch of Non-Euclidean Geometry called Riemannian Geometry, but that probably would take me off course if I talked about that too much). . . . . . . . . . One deduces that a wormhole is a warping of the space-time continuum that connects two regions of space and so on

 

 

One of the things that Xeroc addressed was that you would have to go faster then light to actually enter a wormhole.

 

Now I’m going to ask everyone to think out of the box for a little bit. We are going to look at Non-Euclidean Riemannian Geometry! (In order to truly understand what a wormhole is one must look into this) . . . .

 

If you look at the diagram that Xeroc found one can figure out a few things. Besides just thinking of “space” one must think of “space-time”.

When we look at a basic diagram like the one we have we tend to forget that time is a dimension and we tend to forget that time is just as important as those three other dimensions. From a regular “Penrose” (excuse all of the jargon) we could break it up and make it correspond to different times!

 

Now this is the fun part - we are not just looking at an regular, ordinary thing - we can throw time as a variable. What we see is that a wormhole from time opens up and then snaps shut! (once we apply the logic that I stated)

 

This shows that the “throat” can form from two distortions in opposite regions of fairly flat regions that grow towards each other and connect to one each other. Then they shrink and separate.

 

There is in fact another problem besides just the fact that they open and shut to fast. The problem is that because wormholes are not really stable that they might in fact not connect to form a throat and this would separate regions of our space near by. (Of course we might find a nice stable one, but you must be wary of the unstable ones. LOL)

 

Now to the solution:

Well the solution is negative pressure (antigravity).

Well I won’t go to far into the details of things like Casimir effect or superconductivity because that will take too long, but here is a quick to the point example of negative pressure . . . . . .. Think of two parallel metal plates that are very close together that are in a vacuum. In the quantum world of quantum mechanics particle-antiparticle pairs are being produced and annihilating one each other. The vacuum it self and from the fact of how the metal plates are set up so close to each other the energy goes to work this produces negative energy or negative pressure!

 

Of course producing that in mass-amounts (and you would need tons of it) would be very difficult, but leaving that to the side it might be possible.

For using it and how long - we are talking about something that opens and shots in a flash. It would just hold it long enough to get your work done, but once you get on the other side you would have to use the same process all over again to open up the other mouth. (And you must apply QG that creates more limts)

 

 

Then one can get into something called "paper-doll topology of charged singularities", but I don’t think that anyone here (expect a few) would be that interested because then we would take another step in complexity.

 

If you have any questions for me, then please ask

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

Edited June 15, 2003 by master_q

[Xeroc 0]

would this "exotic matter" hold it open indefinately or not long enough to do whatcha gotta do and come back?

It could theoretically hold it open indefinently.

 

"exotic matter", don't you mean dark matter?

No, dark matter is different. I mean anti-gravity (or negative pressure like Master_Q said)

[ARMS 0]

So we're are in the realms of Anti-everything are we, good, good

 

Baffling question Question;

 

Why don't we see firework displays from annihilation of matter and anti-matter, due to this;

 

If in an anti-matter universe everything is opposite why don't objects of immense anti mass, get repelled by the immense anti gravity of a tiny anti-object, and fly across the universe to our matter galaxy, only to be annihilated by the first matter they encounter?

 

 

(Physics exam on tuesday)

[Xeroc 0]

So we're are in the realms of Anti-everything are we, good, good :lol:

 

Baffling question Question;

 

Why don't we see firework displays from annihilation of matter and anti-matter, due to this;

 

If in an anti-matter universe everything is opposite why don't objects of immense anti mass, get repelled by the immense anti gravity of a tiny anti-object, and fly across the universe to our matter galaxy, only to be annihilated by the first matter they encounter?

 

 

(Physics exam on tuesday)

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

 

No, that is, first really confusing, and second of all, an anti-universe would be completely seperate from our universe!

[cptwright 1]

Well it seems like I got the title of a person that is notorious for giving detailed and hard responses concerning physics. Sometimes I do give detailed answers to get a major point across or to defend my view point, but I try to give a direct and simple answer. However, I do not believe that one can fully appreciate a scenario or item in physics without more of a backbone understanding of the major concepts (And that’s one thing that is wrong with traditional physics courses).

 

The whole issue around Wormholes really developed with a problem Carl Sagan had (and he is one of my favorite scientists). You probably have seen the movie “Contact” or have read his book. In “Contact” he had a problem that he wanted to resolve and so he wrote a letter to Kip Thorne. Sagan wanted to send a person to a distance place within her lifetime and he did not want to violate special relativity. From special relativity we know that you can’t go faster then light using traditional means. Sagan asked if he could use a black hole to travel and Throne replied “no”. Then the idea of a wormhole came into science fiction and into physic.

 

So that’s the short version of the story of how wormholes came into existence. (It’s pretty interesting stuff!)

 

The Einstein-Rosen Bridge . . . .

When one looks into the Schwarzschild’s solutions to general relativity you can interpret and display a solution that connects two places in space. Hermann Weyl was actually the first one to really speculate that they might exist by looking at the solutions of some equations (he specifically looked at a sub-branch of Non-Euclidean Geometry called Riemannian Geometry, but that probably would take me off course if I talked about that too much). . . . . . . . . . One deduces that a wormhole is a warping of the space-time continuum that connects two regions of space and so on

 

 

One of the things that Xeroc addressed was that you would have to go faster then light to actually enter a wormhole.

 

Now I’m going to ask everyone to think out of the box for a little bit. We are going to look at Non-Euclidean Riemannian Geometry! (In order to truly understand what a wormhole is one must look into this) . . . .

 

If you look at the diagram that Xeroc found one can figure out a few things. Besides just thinking of “space” one must think of “space-time”.

When we look at a basic diagram like the one we have we tend to forget that time is a dimension and we tend to forget that time is just as important as those three other dimensions. From a regular “Penrose” (excuse all of the jargon) we could break it up and make it correspond to different times!

 

Now this is the fun part - we are not just looking at an regular, ordinary thing - we can throw time as a variable. What we see is that a wormhole from time opens up and then snaps shut! (once we apply the logic that I stated)

 

This shows that the “throat” can form from two distortions in opposite regions of fairly flat regions that grow towards each other and connect to one each other. Then they shrink and separate.

 

There is in fact another problem besides just the fact that they open and shut to fast. The problem is that because wormholes are not really stable that they might in fact not connect to form a throat and this would separate regions of our space near by. (Of course we might find a nice stable one, but you must be wary of the unstable ones. LOL)

 

Now to the solution:

Well the solution is negative pressure (antigravity).

Well I won’t go to far into the details of things like Casimir effect or superconductivity because that will take too long, but here is a quick to the point example of negative pressure . . . . . .. Think of two parallel metal plates that are very close together that are in a vacuum. In the quantum world of quantum mechanics particle-antiparticle pairs are being produced and annihilating one each other. The vacuum it self and from the fact of how the metal plates are set up so close to each other the energy goes to work this produces negative energy or negative pressure!

 

Of course producing that in mass-amounts (and you would need tons of it) would be very difficult, but leaving that to the side it might be possible.

For using it and how long - we are talking about something that opens and shots in a flash. It would just hold it long enough to get your work done, but once you get on the other side you would have to use the same process all over again to open up the other mouth. (And you must apply QG that creates more limts)

 

 

Then one can get into something called "paper-doll topology of charged singularities", but I don’t think that anyone here (expect a few) would be that interested because then we would take another step in complexity.

 

If you have any questions for me, then please ask

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[master_q 0]

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you mean?

Too complex . . .?

If there is something that you want me to address or expand on the idea, then I’ll be more then happy to . . ..

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

[removed 0]

"exotic matter", don't you mean dark matter?

No, dark matter is different. I mean anti-gravity (or negative pressure like Master_Q said)

then what exactly is dark matter?

[master_q 0]

then what exactly is dark matter?

Good question.

 

Well dark matter is really that “x-factor”. When we observer star movements sometimes the movement is not completely static. From Newton & Kellper we learned a lot like the principals behind planetary motion. Then we got the replacement from Einstein using General Relativity. When we do the math the star movements we see of some of the stars does not factor out or equal what we see.

 

So it was deducted that there has to be some other force as an extra variable. This extra variable turns out we think to be so called "dark matter".

 

So let's imagine two stars going around a large gravity source. Not only that but lets pretend that dark matter is in the center. As a result the two stars that are not the same distances would be pulled equally from the dark matter. If we think about it that does not fit. The best conclusion (and that has been verified by observing the heavens and there motions) is that its spread all around, mainly in-between the stars in the sky.

 

So the star closer to the gravity would have less dark matter pulling it. (Or the star that's farther away would be pulled on more)

 

This is a starter for us to go into what it might really be. So scientists then began to see what kind of particles would fit the variables at hand. One particle that may fit in it is the neutrino. This particle has no mass, it does not decay [not easily it would take a very long time], and has weak interaction. It fits the variables at hand (at least it is thought to).

 

By the way it is called dark matter because we can not see it (and for the fact that neutrinos fit the bill that make them up).

 

When I look at the cosmic scheme of it all it’s scary . . . .

 

Scientists also found that the universe is composed of . . .

4% Matter (!)

23% Dark Matter

73% Exotic Dark Matter

 

I say it is “scary” because we don’t really know what dark matter or exotic dark matter really is. That just shows that there is so much we really don’t know.

 

 

Another really funny this is that Einstein came up with something called the cosmological constant. First off he thought that the universe was static and did not expand. So he developed the cosmological constant, but later it was proven that the universe is in fact not static and that it is expanding. Einstein they called his new constant the greatest mistake he ever made. However, several new models to quantum cosmology have shown that the idea of a cosmological constant may in fact be true and that Einstein was only half wrong. (Seems Einstein’s was right! The only thing he was wrong on what the universe is static)

 

 

I know Chung-Pei Ma (a astronomer) actually developed a model to show dark matter in its cosmic glory. I think it shows promise. So maybe someday in the near future someone will finally put out the theoretical theories that govern them

 

 

Master Q

StarTrek_Master_Q@yahoo.com

Edited June 29, 2003 by master_q

[WEAREBORG4102 0]

Read Stephen Hawking he has good explanations