Wormholes

Wormholes let you travel from one part of the Cosmos to another in an instant. But are they for real?

Posted by Tormod Guldvog
29 June, 2004 12:06:36

The concept of wormholes is an important ingredient in science fiction movies and literature. In Star Trek, for example, they travel through wormholes all the time.Wormholes provide a quick and easy way to traverse vast expanses of space without the passage of time - something which, according to traditional physics, should be impossible.

But is it? Ever since scientists realized that there are such things as black holes, they have wondered what would happen if you travel into one.

One theory says that black holes are so dense that they actually rip the fabric of space, effectively connecting sections of space which would normally be too far apart to even communicate.

A wormhole is this idea taken one step further. A wormhole would create a gateway through which objects could actually travel - back and forth - without getting ripped apart like they would in a black hole.

And to make things even more fantastic, wormholes could effectively connect not only different parts of the Universe, but even different Universes!

But for now, wormholes are mostly speculation and theoretical physics. This hypography is a mix of hard science and more speculative fantasies. Make up your own mind, and don't forget to take the poll!

Related Links

Wormholes
http://spaceinfo.jaxa.jp/note/shikumi/e/shi104_warmhole_e.html
A brief presentation of wormholes and a discussion of their use as travel machines

Wormhole Construction: Proceed with Caution
http://focus.aps.org/v2/st7.html
A brief presentation of wormholes and how they are thought to form.

Negative Energy, Wormholes and Warp Drive
http://www.physics.hku.hk/sf/topics/wormhole/wormhole.html
An article which was published in Scientific American in January 2000, about a curious kind of energy which is necessary for wormholes to work.

NASA Goes FTL Part 1: Wormhole Physics
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw69.html
This is an article from The Alternate View columns of John G. Cramer, published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine.

Wormholes: Searching For A Subway To The Stars
http://www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/wormholes.htp
For the more technically oriented: A text with extracts from an article in Physical Review D, about Natural Wormholes as Gravitational Lenses.

Michio Kaku, Articles
http://www.mkaku.org/articles/
A series of articles (links in the left margin) on the theory of everything, wormholes, hyperspace, string theory etc written by Michio Kaku

Wormholes take on a new dimension
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_710000/710812.stm
A news story about recent discoveries in wormhole research.

Wormholes and Time Machines
http://www.dd.chalmers.se/~f93jojo/sidan2.htm
This is a paper, part of a student project, written for a course about Black Holes at Chalmers University of Technology.

About Time
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/980328/ntime.html
An article in New Scientist about the possibility that wormholes may function as time machines - and that they are readily available throughout the Cosmos.