Earth 12000

[futuretalk]

EARTH 12000: EXPLORING SPACE, TIME, AND PARALLEL UNIVERSES
A glance at what life may be like ten millennia from now
By Dick Pelletier

Of course, nobody can predict exactly how the future will unfold in 10,000 years, but by tracking technology advances expected in the coming centuries, we see changes that will transform humanity into super-intelligent beings focused on developing space, exploring universes, and traveling through time.

Imagine if you could peek in on the dinosaurs’ first-hand, enjoy an exotic vacation thousands of light years from Earth, or jump into a parallel universe where another you is living a far more exciting life than yours – and you could stay there if you like.

For years, scientists around the world have bandied about the revolutionary idea that future humans could zip across the universe using wormholes as high-speed portals enabling faster-than-light travel to explore space, enter other universes, and witness the past and future.

Wormholes enable travel between its two openings. One end of the wormhole stays home while the other is carted away at sub-light velocities to the destination, connecting the two locations through a tunnel in warped space-time. A person enters the wormhole, and depending on the connection, exits to a remote destination in space, another time in the past or future, or into a parallel universe.

Consensus among most scientists has been that wormholes are so destructive; people would be torn to subatomic bits if they tried such a thing. However, a new paper by University of Utah physicist Lior Burko now raises the possibility that wormholes may not annihilate all matter, and the potential for hyperspace travel could one day be realized.

“One possibility is that wormholes may allow us to travel to very remote places in the universe, or to another universe entirely,” said Burko. “It depends on the topology of the universe, which today, we do not know very well… I’m not arguing it’s a practical thing to do, but in thousands of years from now it may become simpler.”

In Burko’s scheme, wormholes are theoretical constructs equivalent to tunnels, or shortcuts, between distant points of the universe, different places in time, or even parallel universes. This idea isn’t new. Wormholes were popularized by Caltech physicist Kip Thorne in the 1980s and were the interstellar vehicle of choice in the Jody Foster movie, Contact.

Princeton physicist Richard Gott in his book Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe said, “I characterize it like a speed bump. You hit it, and you come out in a region of time travel, another universe, or somewhere a great distance away. These are interesting possibilities.”

Though construction of wormholes is beyond present day abilities, advances in today’s artificial intelligence, combined with new nanomaterials promise to one day provide humanity with superior nanoelectronic brains where intelligence is governed by physics, not biology. Sometime between the years 3000 and 12000, many futurists believe that civilization could be capable of harnessing wormholes.

Could a forward vision like this ever happen? Given the rise of religious fundamentalism and a growing anti-science movement, there could be rough sledding ahead, but positive-thinkers believe that with determination and good fortune, this “magical future” will become reality.

[maddog]

Originally Posted by futuretalk

EARTH 12000: EXPLORING SPACE, TIME, AND PARALLEL UNIVERSES
A glance at what life may be like ten millennia from now -- By Dick Pelletier
...

This post say a lot of not much and never really addresses the title of this thread --
"What about Earth in 12,000 AD" ???

Originally Posted by futuretalk

Consensus among most scientists has been that wormholes are so destructive; people would be torn to subatomic bits if they tried such a thing. However, a new paper by University of Utah physicist Lior Burko now raises the possibility that wormholes may not annihilate all matter, and the potential for hyperspace travel could one day be realized.

“One possibility is that wormholes may allow us to travel to very remote places in the universe, or to another universe entirely,” said Burko. “It depends on the topology of the universe, which today, we do not know very well… I’m not arguing it’s a practical thing to do, but in thousands of years from now it may become simpler.”

Please provide a link (or a citation) to the paper, as I would like to read it (not one I have
to pay for).

Originally Posted by futuretalk

Could a forward vision like this ever happen? Given the rise of religious fundamentalism and a growing anti-science movement, there could be rough sledding ahead, but positive-thinkers believe that with determination and good fortune, this “magical future” will become reality.

Forward Vision ??? What was that old marketing phrase -- "where's the beef" of this
post ?

maddog

[futuretalk]

In this 6-year-old report that Burko published in Physical Review Letters, he states that hyperspace travel through wormholes is possible, but he adds that there still may be too many hazards that could prevent it.

hyperspace: University of Utah News Release: April 03, 2003

Burko is now working at University of Alabama.

As futuristic as it sounds, this version of what life might be like in ten millennia could become reality. Time will tell.

[futuretalk]

Should the Large Hadron Collider get up and running this year, many forward-thinkers believe researchers will be able to create ‘baby black holes’ and prove that wormholes could one day be created.

Possible breakthroughs like this could spur further research into these weird portals and as the centuries unfold in the future, wormhole travel could become reality; maybe only sending information, but that might be all we need.

[Moontanman]

I see no reason to assume things like worm hole travel, FTL travel or time travel in 10,000 years. Assuming we will master such technology is like a cave man assuming we will be able to conjure spirits or talk to his dead ancestors. I think we are more likely to use free roaming orbital colonies to house the human race and to travel to and eventually populate the entire galaxy. The idea of living on a planet will be as odd as living in a cave is now. Gravity wells will be avoided or only used as a way to boost the speed of huge colonies made of spun carbon nanotubes fibers resembling endless suspension bridges, these colonies will be rotated to make artificial gravity using centripetal force, not some magical gravity generating devices. Inside these colonies will be planet like except the horizon will bend up instead of down like a planet. These colonies will use materials found in space to build new colonies and so they will spread through the solar system and eventually to other stars. Traveling much less than the speed of light by 10,000 years humans should be around most of the stars with in 10 light years and well on our way to inhabiting the entire galaxy. No magical technology using super high energy physics is necessary for this to happen. within 250,000 thousands years humans should be well on our way to inhabiting every part of the galaxy not denied us because of natural hazards we cannot control.