Jump Gate Theory
Jump Gate Theory
Jump Gates
A Theoretical Approach to Stabilization of Wormholes
Let me begin this article by saying that jump gates, and thusly the wormholes attached to them, are mathematically possible, but cannot be proven in the field for simple lack of materials. Einstein proved in his formulae that the establishment of a wormhole is possible by bending spacetime to the point where it rips. This is also how a black hole works. But since data cannot be gathered from inside a black hole, nor can black holes be seen (only detected through observation of materials surrounding them), we can only speculate on how to approach the construction of a jump gate. It has been stated by astrophysicists that, through the use of an as-yet-unknown exotic material, building a structure with this material around a black hole could stabilize it and/or allow materials to be sent through it. But since even light cannot escape the pull of a black hole; no material is known to be capable of surviving the journey intact.
Wormholes are significantly smaller anomalies. Einstein showed they could exist on a mathematical basis, but only remain stable and open for 1042 of a second. To put this in better perspective, the human eye blinks at a rate of about 103 per second. Thus the idea of sending a person or some other object through the wormhole, as suggested by so many popular science fiction shows, is impossible unless some sort of stabilizing mechanism is in place to keep the wormhole open. This is where things begin to traverse from mathematical astrophysics to theoretical astrophysics.
Stabilization will occur if an opposing force can balance the bending of light and at the event horizon of a wormhole. The event horizon, or edge of a wormhole, is where light can no longer escape the pull of the wormhole and is thus pulled down inside of it. At this point the light, and any other material reaching the edge, is pulled through the wormhole to the other side. Scientists have no idea what happens when it reaches the other side. But there have been many speculations, including those shown in science fiction shows. Theoretically, if the wormhole is stable long enough, a large object shot directly through the center of the wormhole opening can be ejected out the other side without being ripped apart to bare atoms. Since light (and all other debris pulled in) bends at the event horizon, if this region is avoided material could pass through in a mere fraction of a second without any damage. That is theoretically.
To create this stable event horizon is another matter of theory. Many people have proposed the idea of jump gates. In recent times they have become popular in many movies and television shows. A jump gate is basically a mechanism that can produce a stable wormhole, either by being built around an existing one, or by having one started in the center of an active (pre-built) gate. At the event horizon light and mass bend and begin to be torn apart as they are sucked down in a circular fashion – similar to a sink draining water – into the wormhole and then ejected at another point on the opposite side. To negate the pull of the event horizon one would have to use equally strong forces to oppose the event horizon. Positive charged ions and photons emitted in a circular fashion opposite the flow of the wormhole could theoretically create this stability. Obviously this could only be achieved by nuclear reactors and a large amount of fissionable fuel. Particle accelerators could be used to emit positive charged photons and/or ions in the opposite direction of the wormhole’s natural flow. Once the opposing forces are balanced, a stable wormhole will be achieved.
Since no material known to man, and no material observed by astronomers studying black holes, have survived entering a black hole intact, it is safe to assume that unless stabilized, a wormhole would have the same effects. Therefore constructing a jump gate around an existing wormhole is nigh impossible unless some gigantic force were able to project positive particles against the flow of the event horizon from a distance. This, however, would cause damage to the immediate planetary system, not to mention the operators projecting the positive particles. In essence it would be like fighting fire with fire, which while it may work, is exceedingly destructive in the process of establishing control. This leads us to look at creating a new wormhole within an existing (pre-built) jump gate.
To create a wormhole within an existing gate would mean detonating an uncontrolled nuclear reaction and allowing it to consume all of its mass in order to nova and condense into a negative form of energy, thus retracting instead of exploding. This again poses a problem since the amount of energy needed to achieve this is immense. Theoretically, a small nova could be established and then “fed†fissionable fuel in order to slowly expand it. This then could be a possible approach to take within the confines of a jump gate. Careful control would need to be maintained to keep the balance of flow between the negative particles at the event horizon with those positive particles emitted by the jump gate. A gradual increase in power of both negative and positive particles would then increase the size of the wormhole until it occupies the entire breadth of the jump gate. At this point it would only be a matter of maintaining the balance so long as it is desired to keep the wormhole open.
The notion of opening and closing wormholes on a whim is a fancy that is not possible if it is desired to access a particular point; as in traveling from Point A to Point B in a straight line. Once a wormhole is opened, a parallel opening at the opposite end will also open where any material entering from Point A will be ejected at Point B. A jump gate can then be constructed around the wormhole opening at Point B. But in order to maintain the constant locations of Point A and Point B, the wormhole must remain open. For if it closes at Point A, it will then close a Point B. Re-opening the wormhole at Point A will cause the opposite Point B to open at another location randomly and uncontrollably. Therefore it is essential to keep the gates open at all times.
Traveling backwards is also fantasy, since this would basically be like trying to swim against the flow of a stream that has the strength of a thousand suns. The only possible option would be either to open a parallel gate in the hopes that it would open near the same location, or to use an immense amount of power to reverse the flow of the wormhole without closing it. Either option is risky. The first would be a matter of trial and error, and the error in this case could very well be catastrophic. The second would involve detonating a nova at Point B and forcing the flow of positive particles to reverse the flow of the entire wormhole. Alternately, this could also be achieved by an immensely powerful gate with enough positive emission force to reverse the entire flow; although the possibility of achieving this is questionable at best. Overall the best long-term option would be to establish a parallel gate that flows in the reverse direction. But the simple logistics and material use/consumption involved in building dual gates, virtually acting as two lanes of a road, are immense and would require a great deal of maintenance.
The entire prospect of building and using jump gates to control wormholes is a risky and expensive process. In the opposite spectrum however, the amount of fuel they can theoretically save in reducing interstellar transportation costs and time cannot be measured for there simply is no comparison. If, through mathematical calculation, Point B can be pre-established when opening Point A, then a jump gate could virtually open a portal to anywhere in the universe. But in the bare bones form of traveling from Point A to Point B, as a constant it is simply a form of bending spacetime so that two distant points effectively touch, making transit between the two instantaneous. In the abstract of future interstellar travel, such means of transportation will be essential unless FTL (Faster Than Light) travel is achieved by conventional spacecraft engines. Under present circumstances however, it would take years, even decades, for a spacecraft to reach another star system. Wormholes could make such trips take only a matter of minutes.
Negating costs and fuel consumption on the part of the jump gates could be achieved by utilizing nuclear fusion, which is more powerful than nuclear fission. But this would require a strengthening of the jump gate structure itself to withstand even greater forces pulling at it. Even still, the amount of fuel consumption would be significantly reduced while the power of the gate itself increased. Reversing the flow of the gate would also be much harder and dangerous, thus the construction of dual gates using fusion would be more sensible. Otherwise there is little that can be done to negate the costs incurred both by construction and maintenance.
The hazards of such an operation also suggest that high maintenance costs will continually plague jump gates. Nuclear power plants already have many fail-safe devices and numerous staff to insure the safety of the plant, its workers, and those living near to it. In this case, the amount of power involved creates a situation at least ten times as hazardous. Like nuclear power plants, a jump gate’s particle accelerator would produce significant amounts of radiation – even if fusion were used. Significant barriers and containment cells would need to be placed around the accelerator and the reactor exteriors. Physical waste would be minimal besides spent fuel cells, which could easily be deposited on a dead planet. Above all else would be the stringency needed to maintain safety protocols and procedures, along with adequate staff, to insure that the reactors are kept running properly and that the particle flows do not become unbalanced.
In conclusion, while many of the main points concerning jump gates have been addressed here, this is still a minimum amount of information on the topic. That information is also heavily reliant on theoretical astrophysics. Therefore at best we can only continue to speculate the real outcome of such endeavors until a time when future science makes such projects feasible. In the meantime however, such theories as these may be used to establish models and add to the compendium of material that continues to grow on this particular topic. Even so, we must continue to strive towards maintaining the utmost care in our work. As Einstein stressed when working on atomic theory, such matters must be tempered by caution against the long term effects of delving into such a dangerous science.
Scientific Notes: I would like to thank Dr. Peter Roming of Penn State University and Dr. Stephen Hawking for their input and research (respectively) on this topic. A good portion of this document was written taking into consideration the material presented in Dr. Roming's "The Dark Side of the Universe" at Berkshire Community College.
Micronational Application Note: When applying this to the micronational scene, a wormhole jump gate, while mathematically feasible, at least partially, this document can serve as a basis to expand upon for establishing fixed stories regarding the often spoken of "Micras-Giess Jump Gate" and its relative maintenance and construction. In the continued efforts to maintain a semblance of realism, this document is intended to help move things in that general direction as micronational space exploration continues to expand.
A Theoretical Approach to Stabilization of Wormholes
Let me begin this article by saying that jump gates, and thusly the wormholes attached to them, are mathematically possible, but cannot be proven in the field for simple lack of materials. Einstein proved in his formulae that the establishment of a wormhole is possible by bending spacetime to the point where it rips. This is also how a black hole works. But since data cannot be gathered from inside a black hole, nor can black holes be seen (only detected through observation of materials surrounding them), we can only speculate on how to approach the construction of a jump gate. It has been stated by astrophysicists that, through the use of an as-yet-unknown exotic material, building a structure with this material around a black hole could stabilize it and/or allow materials to be sent through it. But since even light cannot escape the pull of a black hole; no material is known to be capable of surviving the journey intact.
Wormholes are significantly smaller anomalies. Einstein showed they could exist on a mathematical basis, but only remain stable and open for 1042 of a second. To put this in better perspective, the human eye blinks at a rate of about 103 per second. Thus the idea of sending a person or some other object through the wormhole, as suggested by so many popular science fiction shows, is impossible unless some sort of stabilizing mechanism is in place to keep the wormhole open. This is where things begin to traverse from mathematical astrophysics to theoretical astrophysics.
Stabilization will occur if an opposing force can balance the bending of light and at the event horizon of a wormhole. The event horizon, or edge of a wormhole, is where light can no longer escape the pull of the wormhole and is thus pulled down inside of it. At this point the light, and any other material reaching the edge, is pulled through the wormhole to the other side. Scientists have no idea what happens when it reaches the other side. But there have been many speculations, including those shown in science fiction shows. Theoretically, if the wormhole is stable long enough, a large object shot directly through the center of the wormhole opening can be ejected out the other side without being ripped apart to bare atoms. Since light (and all other debris pulled in) bends at the event horizon, if this region is avoided material could pass through in a mere fraction of a second without any damage. That is theoretically.
To create this stable event horizon is another matter of theory. Many people have proposed the idea of jump gates. In recent times they have become popular in many movies and television shows. A jump gate is basically a mechanism that can produce a stable wormhole, either by being built around an existing one, or by having one started in the center of an active (pre-built) gate. At the event horizon light and mass bend and begin to be torn apart as they are sucked down in a circular fashion – similar to a sink draining water – into the wormhole and then ejected at another point on the opposite side. To negate the pull of the event horizon one would have to use equally strong forces to oppose the event horizon. Positive charged ions and photons emitted in a circular fashion opposite the flow of the wormhole could theoretically create this stability. Obviously this could only be achieved by nuclear reactors and a large amount of fissionable fuel. Particle accelerators could be used to emit positive charged photons and/or ions in the opposite direction of the wormhole’s natural flow. Once the opposing forces are balanced, a stable wormhole will be achieved.
Since no material known to man, and no material observed by astronomers studying black holes, have survived entering a black hole intact, it is safe to assume that unless stabilized, a wormhole would have the same effects. Therefore constructing a jump gate around an existing wormhole is nigh impossible unless some gigantic force were able to project positive particles against the flow of the event horizon from a distance. This, however, would cause damage to the immediate planetary system, not to mention the operators projecting the positive particles. In essence it would be like fighting fire with fire, which while it may work, is exceedingly destructive in the process of establishing control. This leads us to look at creating a new wormhole within an existing (pre-built) jump gate.
To create a wormhole within an existing gate would mean detonating an uncontrolled nuclear reaction and allowing it to consume all of its mass in order to nova and condense into a negative form of energy, thus retracting instead of exploding. This again poses a problem since the amount of energy needed to achieve this is immense. Theoretically, a small nova could be established and then “fed†fissionable fuel in order to slowly expand it. This then could be a possible approach to take within the confines of a jump gate. Careful control would need to be maintained to keep the balance of flow between the negative particles at the event horizon with those positive particles emitted by the jump gate. A gradual increase in power of both negative and positive particles would then increase the size of the wormhole until it occupies the entire breadth of the jump gate. At this point it would only be a matter of maintaining the balance so long as it is desired to keep the wormhole open.
The notion of opening and closing wormholes on a whim is a fancy that is not possible if it is desired to access a particular point; as in traveling from Point A to Point B in a straight line. Once a wormhole is opened, a parallel opening at the opposite end will also open where any material entering from Point A will be ejected at Point B. A jump gate can then be constructed around the wormhole opening at Point B. But in order to maintain the constant locations of Point A and Point B, the wormhole must remain open. For if it closes at Point A, it will then close a Point B. Re-opening the wormhole at Point A will cause the opposite Point B to open at another location randomly and uncontrollably. Therefore it is essential to keep the gates open at all times.
Traveling backwards is also fantasy, since this would basically be like trying to swim against the flow of a stream that has the strength of a thousand suns. The only possible option would be either to open a parallel gate in the hopes that it would open near the same location, or to use an immense amount of power to reverse the flow of the wormhole without closing it. Either option is risky. The first would be a matter of trial and error, and the error in this case could very well be catastrophic. The second would involve detonating a nova at Point B and forcing the flow of positive particles to reverse the flow of the entire wormhole. Alternately, this could also be achieved by an immensely powerful gate with enough positive emission force to reverse the entire flow; although the possibility of achieving this is questionable at best. Overall the best long-term option would be to establish a parallel gate that flows in the reverse direction. But the simple logistics and material use/consumption involved in building dual gates, virtually acting as two lanes of a road, are immense and would require a great deal of maintenance.
The entire prospect of building and using jump gates to control wormholes is a risky and expensive process. In the opposite spectrum however, the amount of fuel they can theoretically save in reducing interstellar transportation costs and time cannot be measured for there simply is no comparison. If, through mathematical calculation, Point B can be pre-established when opening Point A, then a jump gate could virtually open a portal to anywhere in the universe. But in the bare bones form of traveling from Point A to Point B, as a constant it is simply a form of bending spacetime so that two distant points effectively touch, making transit between the two instantaneous. In the abstract of future interstellar travel, such means of transportation will be essential unless FTL (Faster Than Light) travel is achieved by conventional spacecraft engines. Under present circumstances however, it would take years, even decades, for a spacecraft to reach another star system. Wormholes could make such trips take only a matter of minutes.
Negating costs and fuel consumption on the part of the jump gates could be achieved by utilizing nuclear fusion, which is more powerful than nuclear fission. But this would require a strengthening of the jump gate structure itself to withstand even greater forces pulling at it. Even still, the amount of fuel consumption would be significantly reduced while the power of the gate itself increased. Reversing the flow of the gate would also be much harder and dangerous, thus the construction of dual gates using fusion would be more sensible. Otherwise there is little that can be done to negate the costs incurred both by construction and maintenance.
The hazards of such an operation also suggest that high maintenance costs will continually plague jump gates. Nuclear power plants already have many fail-safe devices and numerous staff to insure the safety of the plant, its workers, and those living near to it. In this case, the amount of power involved creates a situation at least ten times as hazardous. Like nuclear power plants, a jump gate’s particle accelerator would produce significant amounts of radiation – even if fusion were used. Significant barriers and containment cells would need to be placed around the accelerator and the reactor exteriors. Physical waste would be minimal besides spent fuel cells, which could easily be deposited on a dead planet. Above all else would be the stringency needed to maintain safety protocols and procedures, along with adequate staff, to insure that the reactors are kept running properly and that the particle flows do not become unbalanced.
In conclusion, while many of the main points concerning jump gates have been addressed here, this is still a minimum amount of information on the topic. That information is also heavily reliant on theoretical astrophysics. Therefore at best we can only continue to speculate the real outcome of such endeavors until a time when future science makes such projects feasible. In the meantime however, such theories as these may be used to establish models and add to the compendium of material that continues to grow on this particular topic. Even so, we must continue to strive towards maintaining the utmost care in our work. As Einstein stressed when working on atomic theory, such matters must be tempered by caution against the long term effects of delving into such a dangerous science.
Scientific Notes: I would like to thank Dr. Peter Roming of Penn State University and Dr. Stephen Hawking for their input and research (respectively) on this topic. A good portion of this document was written taking into consideration the material presented in Dr. Roming's "The Dark Side of the Universe" at Berkshire Community College.
Micronational Application Note: When applying this to the micronational scene, a wormhole jump gate, while mathematically feasible, at least partially, this document can serve as a basis to expand upon for establishing fixed stories regarding the often spoken of "Micras-Giess Jump Gate" and its relative maintenance and construction. In the continued efforts to maintain a semblance of realism, this document is intended to help move things in that general direction as micronational space exploration continues to expand.
- dr-spangle
- Technical Advisor
- Posts: 13072
- Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 12:20 pm
- Contact:
I've been reading recently about wormholes and how they might be created by the large hadron collider, they compared it more to a folding in space-time and a link between the two folds as opposed to a rip in it.
and they say that the main problem with them is indeed holding them open, as this would need an item of negative pressure to be wedged into it...
alas there aren't any items of negative pressure except dark matter, which of course might not even exist...
the article is located here:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fun ... -here.html
here's a diagram:
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images ... 421701.jpg
of course it would move an item through time and space...
and they say that the main problem with them is indeed holding them open, as this would need an item of negative pressure to be wedged into it...
alas there aren't any items of negative pressure except dark matter, which of course might not even exist...
the article is located here:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fun ... -here.html
here's a diagram:
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images ... 421701.jpg
of course it would move an item through time and space...
- Colonel Vilhelm
- Apollo Foundation Administrator
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Nifty article. If I ever bother to substantiate Col's Transworld Gate with any amount of realistic explanation, I'm sure this will be a great help. Thanks for posting this.
Colonel Vilhelm von Benkern - Preserving the Memories (Regardless of whose those may be)
Pro at Cooking!
Antica
Pro at Cooking!
Antica
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Very nice .... we might use this as a cover story for our gates if we ever need one ...
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
Spangle - It doesn't let me read the whole article unless I subscribe. Can you copy and paste it here please?
But yes, folding spacetime is a different approach from what I'm suggesting. Nonetheless if it is a possibility, then the research should continue. Maybe after some more research I'll present an article on using that approach as an alternative to "rip" gates, so to speak.
But yes, folding spacetime is a different approach from what I'm suggesting. Nonetheless if it is a possibility, then the research should continue. Maybe after some more research I'll present an article on using that approach as an alternative to "rip" gates, so to speak.
- dr-spangle
- Technical Advisor
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- Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 12:20 pm
- Contact:
the thing is as it is explained in new scientist leads to two very close wormholes being created meaning one would have to be ferried out, the long way, to the other planet while being kept still in an electromagnetic box to prevent it ripping the ship up and sending small parts of it home
also here's something from another article that's interesting albeit it could only be used for communication:
if the neutrino converts itself into a serile neutrino and then goes faster than light it would certainly serve as an improvement upon the other possible methods of communication.
AS YOU may have heard, this will be the year. The Large Hadron Collider - the most powerful atom-smasher ever built - will be switched on, and particle physics will hit pay-dirt. Yet if a pair of Russian mathematicians are right, any advances in this area could be overshadowed by a truly extraordinary event. According to Irina Aref'eva and Igor Volovich, the LHC might just turn out to be the world's first time machine.
It is a highly speculative claim, that's for sure. But if Aref'eva and Volovich are correct, the LHC's debut at CERN, the European particle physics centre near Geneva in Switzerland, could provide a landmark in history. That's because travelling into the past is only possible - if it is possible at all - as far back as the creation of the first time machine, and that means 2008 could become Year Zero: a must-see for the discerning time traveller.
Aref'eva and Volovich are sensible and well-respected mathematicians, based at the Steklov Mathematical Institute in Moscow, so they are not actually suggesting that visitors from the future are imminent. What they are saying is that since causality - the idea that effect must follow cause - is one of the most fundamental principles of physics, the notion that it might be tested at the LHC is worth pushing as far as possible. Their work has yet to be recognised by a peer-reviewed journal, but that hasn't stopped some other physicists from taking a keen interest.
For decades, physicists have strived to come up with plausible mechanisms for time travel. Our best description of how space and time behave comes from Einstein's general theory of relativity, so researchers have been looking for some flaw in it - or some as yet unappreciated aspect - in the hope that this might do the trick. The time machine blueprints flowing from such endeavours have never got off the drawing board, but with the LHC we might have finally done it, albeit accidentally.
When the LHC is running at full throttle, it will imbue each of the particles travelling around its 27-kilometre circumference with around 7 teraelectronvolts (TeV) of energy. That may not be much in everyday terms: 1 TeV barely matches the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito. However, when concentrated into a subatomic particle - a trillionth the size of a mosquito - it can do extraordinary things to the fabric of the universe.
According to general relativity, everything in the universe is played out on a stage that has three dimensions of space and one of time. The strange thing about this space-time is that it gets warped by the mass and energy of the universe's contents. This is what lies at the root of gravitational attraction. The mass of the Earth, for instance, distorts the surrounding space, causing everything in its vicinity to feel a pull towards it.
It's harder to visualise the distortion of time, but it does happen to a tiny extent in the presence of any matter or energy. What's more, a large enough concentration of mass or energy can distort time so much that it loops back on itself like a rubber sheet rolled up to make a cylinder. These loops are known to physicists as "closed timelike curves" and they ought, at least in theory, to allow us to revisit some past moment in time.
The first person to show how a closed timelike curve could form was the Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel. In 1949, he demonstrated that if the universe were spinning, relativity should allow this spin to create conditions in which time looped back on itself. If you could get yourself onto this loop, you would keep revisiting the same moment until you got off.
The idea that relativity allowed time travel bothered Einstein when Gödel showed him the results of his calculations, but it wasn't really a problem: to the best of our knowledge, our universe is not spinning, so time travel couldn't happen this way. Neither did the world end in 1976 when Frank Tipler of Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana, showed how an extremely massive and infinitely long, fast-rotating cylinder would create a similar opportunity to travel through time: it is, after all, not a machine that is going to get built any time soon.
Things got more interesting in 1988, when Kip Thorne and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena showed that wormholes, or tunnels through space-time, would allow time travel (Physical Review Letters, vol 61, p 1446). In this case a wormhole would close a loop in time. Travelling through it is a bit like taking a tunnel under a hill: you could get to the other side by going over the hill, but the tunnel gets you there faster. If you choose your wormhole carefully - or take an existing one and move its entrances around - you could even emerge from the wormhole before you went in at the other end.
Space-time shock
This is where the LHC comes in. It could, Aref'eva and Volovich believe, create wormholes and so allow some form of time travel. Each particle travelling through the LHC creates a kind of shock wave in space-time, a gravitational ripple that distorts the space and time around it. When two such waves are heading towards each other, the outcome could be spectacular. Under certain conditions, the colliding gravitational waves will rip a hole in space and time.
What those conditions are depends on the precise nature of space-time - something we don't yet know enough about. While Einstein's relativity theory provides a description of space-time's properties on a large scale, this is only an approximation. Finding out just how much energy it might take to rip holes in the fabric requires an understanding of quantum gravity - a microscopic description of space-time that is still beyond our reach.
Nevertheless, it is conceivable that the LHC could achieve the conditions needed for ripping a hole in space-time. The conventional view among physicists is that quantum gravity does not become important until you deal with phenomena that occur at energies of around 1016 TeV. However, a team led by Nima Arkani-Hamed from the University of California, Berkeley, has shown that quantum gravity could kick in at energies as low as 1 TeV (Physical Review Letters, vol 84, p 586).
Aref'eva and Volovich's speculation about strange space-time effects began with the realisation that the LHC might be powerful enough to make mini black holes. Two protons colliding with a combined energy of 14 TeV might create black holes 10-18 metres in diameter. That idea is intriguing enough, but it is only one possibility. Last year, Aref'eva and her colleagues were again playing about with Einstein's equations, looking for ways in which closed timelike curves might arise (see Diagram). It was then that they came across the possibility that the LHC might create a time machine (www.arxiv.org/abs/0710.2696). "We realised that closed timelike curves and wormholes could also be a result of collisions of particles," Aref'eva says.
The possibilities this raises are being taken seriously by some physicists. "This is an interesting paper," says J. Richard Gott of Princeton University in New Jersey, who suggested as long ago as 1991 that accelerating particles could be a route to time travel. In a paper published at the time in Physical Review Letters, he suggested that if super-energetic particles were aimed so that they missed each other by a small amount, they would warp the space-time around them enough that the interaction of their two warped space-times could form a closed timelike curve.
In Gott's calculations, however, the final outcome wasn't clear: the deformed space-times might well form a black hole instead of a time machine. "The twisting of space and time required to make a time machine are similar to that required to make a black hole," Gott says. Now Aref'eva and Volovich have calculated that wormholes and mini black holes have an equal chance of being created by the LHC, and that a wormhole might even appear as frequently as every couple of seconds.
None of this means we're going to be time travelling by Christmas, however. There are still plenty of obstacles to opening a time portal. Not least of them is the fact that these are mini wormholes, so only subatomic particles are small enough to travel through them. Probably the best we can hope for is that this might provide a signature of the wormholes' existence, Volovich says. If some of the energy from collisions in the LHC goes missing, it could be because the collisions created particles that have travelled into a wormhole.
The second obstacle is also to do with wormhole size. The mouth of a wormhole is like the mouth of a rubber balloon, in that it has a tendency to pull itself closed. The only way to avoid this is to prop the wormhole open with some strange kind of matter that exerts a push rather than a pull.
Is there any such stuff available? At this point, Aref'eva and Volovich extend their speculation into the mysteries of the "dark energy" that seems to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. Dark energy could, they say, be just what is needed to keep the entrance to a wormhole open, but to find out if that is even possible we need to know the answer to another crucial question: as space-time expands, does the density of dark energy increase, decrease or stay constant?
When physicists look at the way expanding space-time behaves, most interpret the observations as suggesting that the energy contained in every cubic centimetre of space-time stays constant: it is "persistent", not, as one might expect, "diluted" by the expansion of the universe. There are, however, a minority of physicists who are putting their money on a third possibility - that as space-time expands, every cubic centimetre gains ever more energy. If dark energy did have this "phantom" nature, space-time would contain an inherent push that could keep the mouths of LHC wormholes open - and perhaps even grow them big enough for people to pass through. "The observational evidence still allows for phantom energy," says Robert Caldwell, a physicist at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Wormhole fingerprint
Unfortunately, we just don't know yet which of the three possibilities is right. Francisco Lobo of the University of Lisbon in Portugal is among the minority who favour the existence of phantom energy - the kind Aref'eva and Volovich say would prop wormholes open. However, just as we're getting ready to go back to the future, Lobo throws his own spanner in the works. "Even if one could, in principle, detect a wormhole signature it does not guarantee the presence of a time machine," he says. We might see the fingerprint of a wormhole at the LHC, just as we might see the indicator of a black hole being formed, but that's not enough to create a useful loop in time, Lobo reckons.
A wormhole is a loop protruding from "normal" space-time, like a handle protruding from a teacup. If you want to turn the wormhole into a time machine, you have to make sure the two ends of the handle meet the cup at just the right points in time. "One would have to create a time-shift between the wormhole mouths," Lobo says.
Various schemes have been proposed to create such a time-shift, but all of them are exotic to say the least. Anchoring one end of a wormhole to a neutron star might do the job, for instance. The intense gravitational field of the star slows time, so the wormhole mouth near the star would develop a time difference with respect to the other mouth. It is conceivable that a time traveller could then jump in, emerge at some point in her past, then travel through normal space to the other end of the wormhole and hang around waiting to watch herself jumping in. It's not the kind of operation we are going to be capable of in the foreseeable future, as Lobo points out.
Yet who knows? Perhaps future civilisations might work out how to stabilise and grow a wormhole, then manipulate the two mouths in order to create a time tunnel. If a combination of fast-moving particles and phantom energy does create a wormhole in Geneva this year, such an advanced civilisation could find it in their history books, pinpoint the moment, and take advantage of their technology to pay us a visit.
“If fast-moving particles and phantom energy create a wormhole in Geneva, future civilisations might be able to pay us a visitâ€Â
This possibility forces us to confront the many paradoxes that time travel raises. The classic example is the time traveller who goes back to kill his grandfather before his own father is conceived - thus ensuring he is never born. Scenarios such as this prompted Stephen Hawking to suggest in 1992 that the laws of physics actually conspire against time travel. His "chronology protection conjecture" says that creating loops in time that would allow time travel has a kind of negative feedback, giving rise to physical phenomena that act to block the loops - as if there were a causality enforcement agency.
Aref'eva doesn't fear these time cops, though. "In general relativity, one cannot just assert that chronology should be preserved without careful analysis," she says. There are many solutions of Einstein's equations that permit such paradoxes to arise, she points out; it is arrogant to declare that these situations can't be manifest in reality just because we can't see how they will play out. Perhaps, she says, the paradoxes will answer questions about free will or allow us to sift through the interpretations of quantum theory. Maybe you would find yourself unable or unwilling to kill your grandfather, or end up in a parallel universe where killing your grandfather would make no difference in the universe from whence you came. Until we build a time machine, we just can't know.
For now our best hope of finding out about the limits of temporal law enforcement is to let the physicists and engineers carry on with their preparations at the LHC. Sure, there are unresolved issues about the scale at which quantum gravity kicks in; we are still arguing over whether the universe contains phantom energy; and we don't even know if we have the likelihood of black holes and wormholes pinned down accurately. Nevertheless, the slim possibility remains that we will see visitors from the future in the next year.
Wouldn't it be better to be prepared than not? Perhaps now is the time to increase the staffing levels at Geneva's tourist information centre. And if you are a grandfather, you might want to check the small print on your life insurance.
also here's something from another article that's interesting albeit it could only be used for communication:
if the neutrino converts itself into a serile neutrino and then goes faster than light it would certainly serve as an improvement upon the other possible methods of communication.
- pawelabrams
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Meh, that technology exists (on Micras ) but was marked Top Secret after someone wanted to inform these not-very-clever humans from Earth about us... And he was shot under their settlement at Roswell...
I'm going to make a film (for Americans: movie ) about the second try to make the Earth go into chaos
EDIT: If you want to know, the spaceship which did first jump was ISS Manta, kept in Secret somewhere North of Interland
I'm going to make a film (for Americans: movie ) about the second try to make the Earth go into chaos
EDIT: If you want to know, the spaceship which did first jump was ISS Manta, kept in Secret somewhere North of Interland
Pavel' Abramovic:, the President of Interland
IRL just a random guy from Poland. Still learning English.
IRL just a random guy from Poland. Still learning English.