Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

Just as we discovered radio waves then invented a radio receiver -transmitter, or discovered other properties of quantum mechanics that advance communication, we may just find a vast network of communication system that been in place for thousands of years. To be connected to the universal web of information. That's all you would need. Any ideas on this Craig ?

That’s along the lines of what Sagan wrote in “Contact”, except rather than an internet-like communication system, what was discovered was a physical transportation system, and rather than everybody getting connected to it, it’s administrators went to lengths to make sure only a few people learned about it, and gave them only a few hints about what to do next to lead humankind to eventual galactic citizenship.

It’s just a SF novel, but I consider “Contact” required reading for enthusiasts of ideas like these (a 1997 major movie was made of it, but alters and omits many of the book’s major ideas). It’s important to remember, still, that this and similar stories are fiction, and there’s no such evidence that ideas about existing or preceding great space civilizations are anything but fiction.

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

it would have to be faster than light communication for it to be of practice use, unless it was in the form of a embedded information a “Basic Guide to the universe.”

The basic idea of traversable wormhole transportation systems is that they’re very long on the outside, and much shorter on the inside, so any EM signal sent through one appears faster than light relative to the outside universe.

If long traversable wormholes exist, it’s difficult to come up with an explanation in which they can’t be used to build paradox-creating time machines, a vast, fun, wiggly can of physics and philosophy worms. In his 1994 “Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy”, Thorne discusses this, and the connection of his research with Sagan’s novel. I highly recommend it as a sort of non-fiction companion to “Contact”.

Though all this, it’s important, IMHO, to keep firmly in mind the very tentative nature of the scientific understanding of wormholes. It’s very possible, arguably likely, that they simply don’t and can’t exist.