Silk Road forums
Discussion => Philosophy, Economics and Justice => Topic started by: sofish89 on April 15, 2013, 02:32 am
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I know that usually a wormhole is associated with time travel but I'm asking more about traveling through space or across space (like a traversable wormhole). For example having a doorway in my house that I could step into and step out somewhere across the world say like Australia.
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No.
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yes. spacetime can be bent. like a piece of paper. spacetime can be folded.
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In theory, yes, in practice, hard.
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Yep. It's called DMT
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You may think that my original answer was abrupt and rude, but I'd prefer to think of it as efficient...
I accept that a 'traversable wormhole' could (possibly) be theoretically possible but I 100% do not believe that it will ever be possible for humans to use one to travel.
Firstly, I do not think that the human species has the longevity to get to a technological point that we could do it, even if it was possible. The universe is a harsh and unforgiving place, and there are too many events, small insignificant perturbations for the universe's point of view, that would make human existence impossible.
Secondly, even if the concept of bending space around to touch itself somewhere else in three dimensional physical space was real (and it very well might not be) the energy required and the physics fo the wormhole would be far outside the abilities of humans to muster. A wormhole connecting different physical locations in 3D space would, IMO, be something on the order of a black hole (perhaps black hole singularities pop out somewhere else in 3D space - who knows?). Warping of space in such a way would also, necessarily, warp time. It's well appreciated by the general public that a person falling into a black hole would get shredded (spaghettified), but what is less appreciated is that, from the perpective of the person going into th eblack hole, this would NEVER actually happen since time slows down correspondingly so you'd never make it.
This brings up the Thirdly. When we read science fiction and think about wormholes, we are thinking about the universe, space, and time as we perceive it. I believe that the nature of reality is far different from our perception. We barely understand quantum mechanics and what it says about reality (understanding is different from modeling and using it's rules to predict small scale behavior). We really don't have a true understanding of what space and time really are and what exists when and where. Being able to create a wormhole to use like a train track implies a much too simplistic view of time, location, and reality.
That was a less efficient answer to your question.
Good point on the DMT by the way, Rainbow Snail ;D
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Wonderful response, cantharidin. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Perhaps someday we'll have something that allows you to travel like a wormhole would. Maybe an ultra advanced scanner that scans and remembers the position of every single cell in your body. It would then send this information in the form of light to some incredibly advanced 3D printer on an earth-like planet light years away. A being exactly like you would then pop out and do whatever it is that you would do.
Maybe you and your 3D printed clone's neurons could be tethered together like the electrons of a strange metal :P.
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Wonderful response, cantharidin. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Perhaps someday we'll have something that allows you to travel like a wormhole would. Maybe an ultra advanced scanner that scans and remembers the position of every single cell in your body. It would then send this information in the form of light to some incredibly advanced 3D printer on an earth-like planet light years away. A being exactly like you would then pop out and do whatever it is that you would do.
Maybe you and your 3D printed clone's neurons could be tethered together like the electrons of a strange metal :P.
No.
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Haha, I'm just imagining. Something like that would probably never exist. It's total bullshit. We have started 3D printing organs though :P.
I just hope that humans do invent something that allows us to travel any sort of meaningful distance in the universe. You're probably right in saying that humans will not get to that point before our extinction. It's fun to think about anyways.
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Yep. It's called DMT
you beat me to the punch. :P
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Firstly, I do not think that the human species has the longevity to get to a technological point that we could do it, even if it was possible. The universe is a harsh and unforgiving place, and there are too many events, small insignificant perturbations for the universe's point of view, that would make human existence impossible.
Secondly, even if the concept of bending space around to touch itself somewhere else in three dimensional physical space was real (and it very well might not be) the energy required and the physics fo the wormhole would be far outside the abilities of humans to muster. A wormhole connecting different physical locations in 3D space would, IMO, be something on the order of a black hole (perhaps black hole singularities pop out somewhere else in 3D space - who knows?). Warping of space in such a way would also, necessarily, warp time. It's well appreciated by the general public that a person falling into a black hole would get shredded (spaghettified), but what is less appreciated is that, from the perpective of the person going into th eblack hole, this would NEVER actually happen since time slows down correspondingly so you'd never make it.
This brings up the Thirdly. When we read science fiction and think about wormholes, we are thinking about the universe, space, and time as we perceive it. I believe that the nature of reality is far different from our perception. We barely understand quantum mechanics and what it says about reality (understanding is different from modeling and using it's rules to predict small scale behavior). We really don't have a true understanding of what space and time really are and what exists when and where. Being able to create a wormhole to use like a train track implies a much too simplistic view of time, location, and reality.
Really good answer. I love this stuff, so don't think I'm so much contradicting you as much as being a nerd and just chatting, but you have it reversed actually: as you approach the black hole, time for the person approaching it will appear to flow 100% as normal. It's to everyone else that the person will appear to be moving slowly. So for the person "falling into" the black hole, they'd basically just get ripped apart and burned alive from the intense energy. I mean they'd basically just get blown up without any time distortion from their view at all.
Everyone else would see them slow down until they were almost not moving at all, just kind of hovering there right outside the black hole -- the closer they got, the slower they'd be going. It's a bizarrely paradoxical thing that I don't claim to fully understand, but it's well tested and documented and predictable and all of that -- it's the same exact thing that happens as you get closer to the speed of light. In fact we've tested it with atomic clocks, one on the ground and one in an airplane that's moving relative to the rotation of the earth: even that small relative movement is enough to distort time that way.
Also, we actually know how to do this -- we just can't do it. I'm sorry, I should say we know how it would be done, rather. Basically it is a black hole, and theoretically yes, it would work. The problem is that the wormhole would require 100% symmetry to stay stable and not collapse. But as you approach one side of it, you throw off the symmetry and it's no longer 100% the same on "both sides," as it were -- causing it to collapse. We don't know how to solve that, and it may not even be possible.
Another problem with it is that just for an opening large enough for a person to go through without being crushed almost instantly by the intense gravitation, the black hole would have to be about a mile in diameter (that's from memory, I may be off on the number). That's a fucking huge black hole that would require enormous energy to generate. It's absurdly impractical by today's standards.
So yes... theoretically it is possible. What would actually happen is pure theory, that it would actually work is pure theory, but according to all the physics that we know (and that *I* know we know at least), it could be done. Someday. Just not in our lifetime :(
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Well i wasn't asking about in our lifetime i meant in like the year 3000 or something, assuming humans were'nt wiped out by then..
I cant even begin to imagine what technology we will have in 50 years, let alone 500 or 1000 years
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you have it reversed actually: as you approach the black hole, time for the person approaching it will appear to flow 100% as normal. It's to everyone else that the person will appear to be moving slowly. So for the person "falling into" the black hole, they'd basically just get ripped apart and burned alive from the intense energy. I mean they'd basically just get blown up without any time distortion from their view at all. Everyone else would see them slow down until they were almost not moving at all, just kind of hovering there right outside the black hole -- the closer they got, the slower they'd be going.
Continuing the nerd chat...
You are correct. I apologize, and listen to me at your own peril. I hope the fact that I'm full of shit this doesn't ruin the discussion for you :D
It's a bizarrely paradoxical thing that I don't claim to fully understand, but it's well tested and documented and predictable and all of that -- it's the same exact thing that happens as you get closer to the speed of light. In fact we've tested it with atomic clocks, one on the ground and one in an airplane that's moving relative to the rotation of the earth: even that small relative movement is enough to distort time that way.
A time dilation correction is also required to make gps worked correctly. The satellites are however many thousands of miles above the earth, and time flows faster since they are farther from the earth's gravitational field. That's a cool thought - we couldn't use gps if we didn't understand general relativity!
Also, we actually know how to do this -- we just can't do it. I'm sorry, I should say we know how it would be done, rather. Basically it is a black hole, and theoretically yes, it would work. The problem is that the wormhole would require 100% symmetry to stay stable and not collapse. But as you approach one side of it, you throw off the symmetry and it's no longer 100% the same on "both sides," as it were -- causing it to collapse. We don't know how to solve that, and it may not even be possible.
Another problem with it is that just for an opening large enough for a person to go through without being crushed almost instantly by the intense gravitation, the black hole would have to be about a mile in diameter (that's from memory, I may be off on the number). That's a fucking huge black hole that would require enormous energy to generate. It's absurdly impractical by today's standards.
So yes... theoretically it is possible. What would actually happen is pure theory, that it would actually work is pure theory, but according to all the physics that we know (and that *I* know we know at least), it could be done. Someday. Just not in our lifetime :(
Well, I need some more convincing before I'll accept that we "know" that a wormhole can be constructed and what it's characteristics would be. Lots of very smart people speculate on what properties a wormhole MIGHT have IF we cold make one, but no one that I'm aware of has a firm theoretical construction for HOW we could actually create one. I'm with you on creating black holes (or whatever size), but I think you're making a leap to call those a wormhole or claim that anyone knows what happens at the singularity of a black hole. I'm especially skeptical of your statement that a black hole 1 mile in diameter would 'have an opening large enough for a person to pass through without being crushed'. A black hole of whatever size (one the mass of our sun would be something like 20 miles in diameter) presumably has a singularity at the center and not any kind of portal. I don't think anyone would be up for trying to pass through a singularity. The wormhole arguments I've seen speculate about stretching the singularity to open and hold open a portal but I'm not aware of any physics that would allow or predict that.
Either way, I, too, like to think about stuff like this. There are a ton of good books about physics/quantum physics/cosmology that have appeared since Brian Greene had such success with his String Theory for Laymen books. It is pretty easy to get some really entertaining physics information these days, even if you don't know mathematics.
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Well i wasn't asking about in our lifetime i meant in like the year 3000 or something, assuming humans were'nt wiped out by then..
I cant even begin to imagine what technology we will have in 50 years, let alone 500 or 1000 years
You asked an interesting question, but I'm arguing that whatever we're doing in 1000 years (or 100,000 years) it will have to be something that obeys the laws of physics. I also arguing that I don't believe wormholes to other points in space necessarily falls under the laws of physics. Of course I can't claim that I every one of know the laws of physics and that it might not be conceivable to do what you say, but my I certainly don't think it will be acheivable so I answer your question with a 'No'.
You may disagree, and that what makes a good argument.
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You're absolutely right, I do make a leap, and I'll tell you why: because I can't remember those details :P
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I can't remember if it was Hawking or someone else whose mathematical modeling determined that transit through a black hole ("through" here indicating missing that ultra-dense central matter that is warping spacetime) would be impossible if the black hole were not rotating but possible if it were rotating. And I think stationary (ie: not pulsating), rotating black holes are standard theory now, though my reading is woefully out of date.
Hard to even guess what physics will permit in 1000 years or 100,000, if there is any descendant of humanity left to find out. I would expect products from grand unification alone to look like magic to us now, and if 12-dimensional theory really is the elegant solution, who knows what kind of mischief we could get up to.
But where are all the Boltzman Brains at? I saw we begin time channel attacks on the nature of reality immediately.
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To me, a total layman, this conversation is missing the more feminine possibilities. Ideas of physically moving our meatbodies through spacetime...I wonder if it would be more a process/jouney for our consciousness and not so much for our bodies, and would that make it any less real. Like astral travelling (DMT!!! ;p ), leaving your body wherever it's lying and exploring the universe with your consciousness. I don't have much experience with this besides the odd lucid dream but I've heard of people visiting places and seeing things that are actually happening in other places. Reality only exists on the screens of our perception and experience anyways so isn't that where you'd expect to find it's deepest secrets. I wonder if we could be a lot more powerful wit a little bit more focus...(HA!! I'm so just saying that to myself right now...love how reality is also just a mirror.)
As far as actually getting our physical bodies doing this? Well if you consider the spaces within atoms, and accept that all matter is just vibration, than I don't see why we couldn't learn to slip through those spaces...
Food for thought if nothing else...
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According to Morgan Freeman............. ;D
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If Chris O'Dowd did it, then so can you.