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A lot of science fiction is based on theoretical physics, but sometimes literature returns the favor and inspires scientific ideas. The perfect symbiosis of the two was realized in the early 1980s when astronomer-turned-novelist Carl Sagan was researching his own works of fiction. contact He turned to his friend, physicist Kip Thorne, for advice.
Sagan wanted to devise a way for his novel’s protagonist to quickly travel to remote civilizations in space. He has written a great deal about how Schwarzschild black holes can connect with other astronomical objects, either additional black holes or their hypothetical opposites, called “white holes,” which spew out energy rather than absorbing it. I knew there was a discussion. These connected objects can potentially be very far apart from each other in normal space. Perhaps other parts of our galaxy and other galaxies as a whole as well.
Sagan thought that such a system, at least in speculative fiction, could provide a shortcut to distant inhabited worlds. But he read that astronauts attempting to pass through such a connection could be at risk. He asked Thorne for an explanation.
With his extensive knowledge of general relativity’s wildest solutions, from black holes to gravitational waves, Thorne was just the right person to ask. He grew up in Logan, Utah, and was fascinated by astronomy from an early age. Logan is located in a valley that gets a lot of snow in the winter, and Thorne wanted to be a snowplow driver as a boy.
But when he was eight years old, his mother took him to a lecture about the solar system. Five years later, reading a popular book by George Gamow, a physicist who helped develop the Big Bang theory, sealed the deal. Thorne wanted to be an astronomer.
If traversable wormholes were possible, there is a good chance that they would be linked not to our universe, but to other universes, parts of the universe that are otherwise separate.
After completing his undergraduate studies at the California Institute of Technology, Thorne pursued a doctoral program in physics at Princeton University. There his mentor, John Wheeler, introduced him to the wondrous astronomical objects of general relativity, such as Black’s holes, geons, and wormholes. Meisner, Thorne, and Wheeler then collaborated on an innovative textbook. gravityit remains a classic.
Sohn’s subsequent work in gravitational wave detection, in collaboration with Rainer Weiss and others, culminated in the success of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) detector, and in 2017, both were joined by former LIGO director He won the Nobel Prize with Barry Barish. The first gravitational wave signal.
In his response to Sagan, Thorne pointed out that venturing into a black hole in the hope of finding a spatial shortcut to another location is not a good idea. Astronauts stretch like taffy due to its intense gravitational field, are exposed to deadly energy released by falling material, and are as dangerous as the most dangerous thrill rides imaginable. It will be accelerated to the level.
Moreover, even if they somehow survive those dangers and find a wormhole connection with another part of the galaxy, their throats are unstable and will quickly be cut off at the entrance. There’s no way to get past that. This means that this mission is doomed to failure and will almost certainly result in death.
This conversation inspired Thorne to think of a solution to Sagan’s question. He assigned one of his graduate students at Caltech, Michael Morris (who became a professor), the task of designing a wormhole that would be safe and traversable if possible. Morris approached the task with enthusiasm and worked with Thorne to ensure that the wormhole throat was stabilized so that it could be passed through the wormhole throat quickly, safely and comfortably, with minimal risk when entering and exiting. I found a general relativistic solution. In fact, they discovered a traversable wormhole that met these specifications.
However, there was one problem. Wormholes would have to be built with vast amounts of matter, perhaps comparable to the weight of galaxies, and at least in part would have to be made up of unknown antigravitational matter with negative mass called “exotic matter.” I had to use it. There are no known celestial or terrestrial objects with mass less than zero. However, quantum field theory has a way of constructing states with negative overall energy and therefore negative mass.
Perhaps a highly advanced civilization could thereby mine the quantum vacuum of negative energy regions to collect exotic materials for wormhole construction. You will then face the additional challenge of finding the huge amount of conventional mass needed and building the wormhole to your specifications safely and quickly.
In 1987, Morris and Thorne published a paper summarizing their findings in the Journal of Educational Physics. American Journal of Physics. Their work inspired other physicists to try their hand at developing wormhole models. New Zealand physicist Matt Visser, in particular, quickly found an alternative solution, determining that it required a smaller proportion of foreign substances. Although building traversable wormholes remains far beyond our capabilities and may ultimately prove impossible, Visser’s results represent a welcome step forward. Ta.
In the 2014 movie interstellar, Thorne, as co-producer and scientific consultant, explored the idea of traversable wormholes in fiction in much more detail than Sagan had attempted. The film uses them as a plot device for astronauts to explore other worlds in space and assess their habitability.
However, if a traversable wormhole is possible, there is a good chance that it will link not to our universe, but to other universes, parts of the universe that are otherwise separate. Thus, perhaps by providing a passageway between disparate space enclaves, such a wormhole network would represent yet another kind of multiverse. Note, however, that wormhole theory is not yet developed enough to determine which spatial regions should be connected. We may only have to guess.
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excerpt from of allure of multiverse: Different dimension, different world, parallel universe Written by Paul Halpern.Copyright © 2024. Available from Basic Books, a publication of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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