Is interstellar travel by wormhole possible?

[spacecowboy342]

I have been wondering about the idea of using wormholes to travel between stars. I know FTL travel is considered impossible but as a thought experiment I was imagining a race between a FTL spacecraft vs one travelling by wormhole. Suppose in this race a FTL craft travels 1000 light years in an hour. They would overtake light rays which had been travelling from earth for 1000 years so training a telescope back towards earth you would see it as it was 1000 years earlier. Does this mean you have truly gone backward in time? Now suppose in this race a craft takes an hour to open a wormhole and travel through it to the same point overtaking those same light rays, Does this show that wormhole travel would also send you backward in time despite the fact that you did not actually travel faster than light? Does this show that wormhole travel might be impossible due to causality problems?

[Mentalcase]

To answer that question correctly would mean we understand the characteristics of a wormhole. Sure, we have theories, but it is all speculative at best. Especially since most of our theories include going through a black hole to enter said wormhole. We already know there is no possible way we could last because, of gravity. Perhaps, creating a wormhole would be a safer alternative. Then we just have to figure out how to create one!

Edited November 28, 2013 by Mentalcase

[+joc]

A = Static Travel at 1000 lyph

B = Fumbling with the locks of a Wormhole for an hour.

What if C = Traveling through the Wormhole at 10,000 lyph? And it only took seconds to unlock the wormhole?

[spacecowboy342]

To answer that question correctly would mean we understand the characteristics of a wormhole. Sure, we have theories, but it is all speculative at best. Especially since most of our theories include going through a black hole to enter said wormhole. We already know there is no possible way we could last because, of gravity. Perhaps, creating a wormhole would be a safer alternative. Then we just have to figure out how to create one!

Yeah I don't know if it would be possible to create one but as I understand it the real problem is keeping it stable and not closing off almost immediately. But assuming you could overcome this does it necessarily send you back in time? It appears that way to me but I'm not sure. If so I'm thinking it might be ruled out as causality violation could result otherwise.

[spacecowboy342]

A = Static Travel at 1000 lyph

B = Fumbling with the locks of a Wormhole for an hour.

What if C = Traveling through the Wormhole at 10,000 lyph? And it only took seconds to unlock the wormhole?

I was only using that hour as an arbitrary thing to show that if FTL travel really would send you backwards in time I would think that wormhole travel would as well. You would overtake light that had been travelling for a thousand years so training your telescope on earth would give you the same images as FTL travel would have. Does this show that you have gone backwards in time? And travelling back through your wormhole, what then would you find?

[Mentalcase]

I think you would be looking back into time and not actually going back. For instance, many of the stars in our night sky don't exist in that state anymore. However, it may take 500 light years for us to see the super nova. See what I mean? We are viewing the past, even though, currently the star actually doesn't exist.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Mentalcase

[+joc]

I was only using that hour as an arbitrary thing to show that if FTL travel really would send you backwards in time I would think that wormhole travel would as well. You would overtake light that had been travelling for a thousand years so training your telescope on earth would give you the same images as FTL travel would have. Does this show that you have gone backwards in time? And travelling back through your wormhole, what then would you find?

I have to look at things visually sometimes...so...here is the diagram of what you are describing. Is Time defined as what is relative to the Speed of Light?

Scenario...You live on a planet far away. Traveling at the speed of light it would take you 40 years to get to Earth...but...the wormhole allowed you to travel to Earth in 4 years. You just gained 36 years on Earth time. If time is relative to the speed of light I would have to think the anser to your question is yes.

Edited November 28, 2013 by joc

[spacecowboy342]

I think you would be looking back into time and not actually going back. For instance, many of the stars in our night sky don't exist in that state anymore. However, it may take 500 light years for us to see the super nova. See what I mean? We are viewing the past, even though, currently the star actually doesn't exist.

Yeah but then does it follow that the same would be true of FTL travel? I have always heard that travelling faster than light would cause time to reverse for you. If travelling by wormhole got you to the same point and looking in you telescope gave you the same view then would you not have gone backward in time as well? Logically I would think your assessment is correct but does this mean that FTL travel wouldn't actually reverse time either?

[spacecowboy342]

I have to look at things visually sometimes...so...here is the diagram of what you are describing. Is Time defined as what is relative to the Speed of Light?

Scenario...You live on a planet far away. Traveling at the speed of light it would take you 40 years to get to Earth...but...the wormhole allowed you to travel to Earth in 4 years. You just gained 36 years on Earth time. If time is relative to the speed of light I would have to think the anser to your question is yes.

That makes sense but then reversing your course back through the wormhole or opening a new one to travel back to earth could you conceivably arrive before you left?

[+joc]

That makes sense but then reversing your course back through the wormhole or opening a new one to travel back to earth could you conceivably arrive before you left?

I would think so..if..you traveled back through the wormhole at a speed faster than that which got you through the first time.

Like, you travel through the wormhole...actual time expended 4 years...you travel back through the wormhole...another 4 years...so on Earth 8 years has passed since you left...unless you traveled back through the wormhole at 8 times the speed of light. Then, on Earth, it would appear that you stepped into the wormhole...and immediately stepped out of it.

Does that make sense.

[spud the mackem]

Wormholes in space, hell I hope the worm that made them never turns up or we're all in deep doo-doo.

I would rate wormholes in space as a pure figment of some mad scientists imagination, probably derived from Star Wars. Warp 5 Scottie,flank speed.

[spacecowboy342]

Wormholes in space, hell I hope the worm that made them never turns up or we're all in deep doo-doo.

I would rate wormholes in space as a pure figment of some mad scientists imagination, probably derived from Star Wars. Warp 5 Scottie,flank speed.

Maybe mad scientists imagination but I have seen a lot of speculation about them from a lot of scientists. I'm thinking travel through them may be impossible even if they are possible to create

[+joc]

Wormholes in space, hell I hope the worm that made them never turns up or we're all in deep doo-doo.

I would rate wormholes in space as a pure figment of some mad scientists imagination, probably derived from Star Wars. Warp 5 Scottie,flank speed.

As per my diagram...rudimentary as it may be...many scientists and physicists think that space is warped...light would therefore travel along the warp...as I understand it a blackhole could create a worm hole if enough of the dark matter of interstellar space was sucked into the blackhole thereby creating a 'hole' in the fabric of space. How one would ever find a hole in space I do not know.

...sort of like a funnel cloud ....sucking up interstellar space ...rearranging it in such a way that the 'warp' of space is overcome and a 'wormhole' is created.

Edited November 28, 2013 by joc

[Beany]

I think you would be looking back into time and not actually going back. For instance, many of the stars in our night sky don't exist in that state anymore. However, it may take 500 light years for us to see the super nova. See what I mean? We are viewing the past, even though, currently the star actually doesn't exist.

I never thought of it like that. So it's sort of like what Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, CA: "There's no there there."

I'm guessing there's someway to extrapolate what might currently be there if/when we finally reach a far away place? The more I think about this, the weirder it gets. I often wish I had the kind of mind that understoodand retained this kind of information better.

[spud the mackem]

As per my diagram...rudimentary as it may be...many scientists and physicists think that space is warped...light would therefore travel along the warp...as I understand it a blackhole could create a worm hole if enough of the dark matter of interstellar space was sucked into the blackhole thereby creating a 'hole' in the fabric of space. How one would ever find a hole in space I do not know.

...sort of like a funnel cloud ....sucking up interstellar space ...rearranging it in such a way that the 'warp' of space is overcome and a 'wormhole' is created.

I get your point, but we don't want to be anywhere near a black hole, and can a wormhole actually be created in the vacuum of space, I still think its pure science fiction, sorry no offence meant.

[spacecowboy342]

I get your point, but we don't want to be anywhere near a black hole, and can a wormhole actually be created in the vacuum of space, I still think its pure science fiction, sorry no offence meant.

None taken. I agree it's pure science fiction at this point. I guess I'm just trying to figure if there is a theoretical basis for it or if we can rule it out. If it's theoretically possible then it becomes an engineering problem and those eventually get solved though it could take a while.

[g00dfella]

LOL...it's not something that can be answered on this site/forum..

[spacecowboy342]

LOL...it's not something that can be answered on this site/forum..

Perhaps not conclusively but and I am just speculating here I think if it can be shown that a wormhole would send you back in time I think it would discredit the idea because I don't think nature will allow causality violation.

[Iron_Lotus]

I would think so..if..you traveled back through the wormhole at a speed faster than that which got you through the first time.

Like, you travel through the wormhole...actual time expended 4 years...you travel back through the wormhole...another 4 years...so on Earth 8 years has passed since you left...unless you traveled back through the wormhole at 8 times the speed of light. Then, on Earth, it would appear that you stepped into the wormhole...and immediately stepped out of it.

Does that make sense.

[Mentalcase]

I don't think it's theoretically possible to travel faster then light. If you could somehow arrange your question with near speed of light or actual speed of light, then it will be easier to answer with an educated guess lol. Obviously ,we being biological beings, can't make either of these trips. We could however, send information at the speed of light. Maybe even create information that can view, observe and report it's experience. Maybe one day we will manipulate a photon to act like a satellite and be our probes of the universe. At least we''d be able to witness plenty in our life time if possible. The first star will be 4 years away, but sending the info back would be another 4 years. So in 8 years we would have a glimpse of what the photon or radio wave encountered.

I think the future of potentiality lies within the strange behavior of entanglement. Something about this weird science tells me that what we see isn't always black and white. There's a very large, grey area that hasn't even been explored.

[Whisperer]

I remeber reading articles that stated pinhole wormholes had been found and seemingly everywhere!

As mentioned before, you wont be time travelling in a real sense since any form of travel is subjective, it will still be the present but the theory of 'folded' space holds more possibilities to my mind, speculated to be utilized by gravity waves according to some researchers and that would make it possible for biological entites to actually travel from one point to another as no speed limitations would be involved...

Dont know about the Spice though....

[Hugh]

I've always liked this type of representation of a wormhole.

It shows how 2D space can be curved in 3D space and travel through it shortened by a 3D wormhole.

I'd love to see a diagram of how 3D space can be curved in 4D space and travel through it shortened by a 4D wormhole.

[Zargoza]

You've got me intrigued; here are a few of my thoughts:

bear with me, as I'm not a theoretical physicist, but I think that if you broke the light speed barrier you would never be able to stop.

by using the formula E = mc^2 / ( 1-V^2/c^2 )^.5 we find that to move an object to light speed it would require infinite energy. If you somehow managed to break LS, you would never be able to stop as it would take infinitely more energy to slow down, let alone come to a complete stop.

In my mind if you did break the LS barrier you would have to be going back in time, at least as its measured by the human mind.

If faster than light travel was possible I don't believe we would ever, at least visually be able to prove it, because the light reflecting off of the object would never reach our retinas? for that matter would there even be a reflection off of the object if it is traveling faster than light? As the object traveled it would come in contact with light that is already being cast through that space, but how would those rays react with a faster than light surface?

As for the wormhole aspect, I do believe they exist but the ability to stabilize and control the entry and exit points of one is beyond my realm of comprehension....maybe its time to pull out the old blotter and ponder

Edited November 29, 2013 by Zargoza

[spacecowboy342]

I don't think it's theoretically possible to travel faster then light. If you could somehow arrange your question with near speed of light or actual speed of light, then it will be easier to answer with an educated guess lol. Obviously ,we being biological beings, can't make either of these trips. We could however, send information at the speed of light. Maybe even create information that can view, observe and report it's experience. Maybe one day we will manipulate a photon to act like a satellite and be our probes of the universe. At least we''d be able to witness plenty in our life time if possible. The first star will be 4 years away, but sending the info back would be another 4 years. So in 8 years we would have a glimpse of what the photon or radio wave encountered.

I think the future of potentiality lies within the strange behavior of entanglement. Something about this weird science tells me that what we see isn't always black and white. There's a very large, grey area that hasn't even been explored.

Travelling by wormhole i not travelling FTL. I just talked about FTL to compare the telescopic view with that you would see after travelling by wormhole

[spacecowboy342]

You've got me intrigued; here are a few of my thoughts:

bear with me, as I'm not a theoretical physicist, but I think that if you broke the light speed barrier you would never be able to stop.

by using the formula E = mc^2 / ( 1-V^2/c^2 )^.5 we find that to move an object to light speed it would require infinite energy. If you somehow managed to break LS, you would never be able to stop as it would take infinitely more energy to slow down, let alone come to a complete stop.

In my mind if you did break the LS barrier you would have to be going back in time, at least as its measured by the human mind.

If faster than light travel was possible I don't believe we would ever, at least visually be able to prove it, because the light reflecting off of the object would never reach our retinas? for that matter would there even be a reflection off of the object if it is traveling faster than light? As the object traveled it would come in contact with light that is already being cast through that space, but how would those rays react with a faster than light surface?

As for the wormhole aspect, I do believe they exist but the ability to stabilize and control the entry and exit points of one is beyond my realm of comprehension....maybe its time to pull out the old blotter and ponder

Yeah i think you could be right about FTL but as far as travelling by wormhole I think going back in time would necessarily go with it. As far as FTL if you shown a light ahead of you due to the principle of invariance it would appear to race ahead of you at c though you would in fact be travelling faster which would show time reversal. I got to thinking that in a race a wormhole ship could by short cutting normal space arrive 1000 or whatever light years away as fast as FTL travel would get you there so looking back at earth would give you the same view. This gave me the idea that this would also mean time reversal Edited November 29, 2013 by spacecowboy342