Wormholes for Space Travel Created in Lab

mmmm, yet another magnetic/EM analogy demonstration of something that would be better if they could do it really with spacetime. These articles always promise so much...but at the end of the day disappoint :(

I notice as well you have to construct physically something very complicated from the entrance to the exit - not really practical for light year jumps!
 
It is magnetic in form. A repurposed star at both gates would cover it.
 
Now if Scotty could do a time swing around the sun he'd be able to whip this puppy into shape. Just saying. ;)
 
On of the comments in the article sums it up quite well for me:

"If I blow air through a straw, thus concealing the flow of air from an outside observer, did I make a wormhole?"

Essentially this is magnetic field shielding and nothing to do with an actual wormhole...
 
On of the comments in the article sums it up quite well for me:

"If I blow air through a straw, thus concealing the flow of air from an outside observer, did I make a wormhole?"

Essentially this is magnetic field shielding and nothing to do with an actual wormhole...
What I find intriguing is the possibility of magnetic displacement that it offers. You do realize that this could direct the placement of electrons in a given medium. It could turn Schroedinger's dilemma upon its ear. With this you could see and place the electron exactly.
If you can herd electrons to your exact design, you could direct the manesfestation of matter at a given point. And you would control the given perimeters of their manesfestation.
Remember that neither time nor distance matters to electrons.
 
This is NUTS!
I had a 1950s Oscilloscope with a Mumetal shield. The described device is NOTHING to do with wormholes (Einstein-Rosen bridges or ANY other kind) or invisibility. It's just an improved shield using a material related to miniature "rare earth" magnets that allow in ear earphones instead of giant external cans.
"Rare Earth" (not actually Earth or Rare!) material at cryogenic temperatures as a magnetic shield.

Nothing new and nothing special to see here. Nothing to do with space travel or teleporting.

This is PR puff badly reported.
 
That doesn't make sense because what you are saying is:

1. Even though Electrons ignore spacetime if we can put them where we want (ignoring Schroedinger) then we can
2. get them to go exactly where they were on the other side of a theoretical wormhole and
3. they will recreate the same field on exit (also ignoring Schroedinger).

You're arguing quantum entanglement backwards. You have to break Schroedinger (1) in order to then say you can ignore it (3). Whilst also ignoring the fact that this is going to require infinite amounts of energy (along with exotic materials that may or may not exist).

I like your ideas but its not like a proper Einstein-Rosen bridge is the next logical step here, it would be like saying "cavemen lit a fire so in essence they could build an efficient fission reactor!"

Although I do like your optimism. :)
 
Popolularist science usually tends towards the "Wow with this idea we could travel the galaxies" type of story.

Brian Cox, as much as I like the guy, has some questions to answer with regards to some ludicrous statements he has made over the years. Especially as they come across as being authority. An example he stated (as a matter of fact and not a possibility) that Liverpool won the Premier Leagus one year - which to me was such a ridiculous statement about MWI that I had to switch the TV off. All he had to say was possibly...
 
Have you calculated how long it would take a worm to crawl to Mars? And it has to take food along, there are no McDonalds in space, yet.
Wormholes don't work because space is not dirt. On a serious note - doesn't this smash headon into the conservation of energy law?
 
On a serious note - doesn't this smash headon into the conservation of energy law?
The news as presented is total nonsense and misleading. This is just a better magnetic shield, the sort of thing that was done badly probably 100 years ago.
So there are no laws broken, because this doesn't really do anything different (just better) to a magnet at one end of magnetic circuit screened with mumetal and a compass needle to show field at other end of pipe, but very little at sides. It's just an improved version.

I've no idea why it's dressed up as something new, or like a wormhole. It's neither.
 
Yeah, this is totally not the same thing as a spacetime wormhole, and they really shouldn't describe it along those lines. It's particularly annoying to me because this process has potential for practical real-world benefits, but they choose to describe it in such a way that many people will be misled. This process looks like a wormhole, but that is something of an illusion caused by "hiding" the electromagnetic field. At no point is the electromagnetic field taking a short cut through space.

For the record, I do not think that traversable wormholes are possible. Exotic matter with negative mass/energy would be required to create a real wormhole, and as far as we can tell there is no such thing. Even dark energy possesses positive energy density. Particles with negative mass/energy would violate conservation of momentum (at the very least) and therefore cannot exist. Plank scale wormholes have a higher probability of existing (and some quantum effects are occasionally interpreted in such a way by some physicists), but they are likewise not proven, and they would not be usable for travel. Virtual particles can have negative energy, but they are useless in this regard, though they do help generate Hawking radiation from black holes. "Squeezed light" manifests negative energy, but it is balanced by positive energy and not applicable to this topic. The closest thing to useful negative energy* that I know about is the Casimir effect, but that would also not help make wormholes due to its incredible weakness and ridiculously short range.

These limitations also prevent "warp drives" like the Alcubierre drive. Miguel Alcubierre has expressed his own disbelief in the possibility of such a device, saying, "from my understanding there is no way it can be done, probably not for centuries if at all."

That said, there's no reason to avoid wormholes in sci-fi (unless you're writing hard sci-fi, of course). I use them in my novels, but I wave away the limitations of reality with pseudoscience and technobabble; the trick is trying to make it convincing. In short, write what you want, don't worry too much about reality. The story one wishes to tell matters more than realism, IMHO. ;)

*Yes, gravity can be considered negative energy, but not the type that can be used for wormholes.
 
And, if they can ever do it, the energy requirements will be astronomical. Plus- the word 'wormhole' is inaccurate at best... isn't it originally a SF term?
Let's go back to 'folding space'.
 
And, if they can ever do it, the energy requirements will be astronomical. Plus- the word 'wormhole' is inaccurate at best... isn't it originally a SF term?
Let's go back to 'folding space'.

The term was actually invented by the physicist John Archibald Wheeler in the Fifties, but it has been (mis-) appropriated by sci-fi since Sagan wrote Contact.
 
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This process looks like a wormhole, but that is something of an illusion caused by "hiding" the electromagnetic field. At no point is the electromagnetic field taking a short cut through space.

It's a magnetic field. Not Electromagnetic.

Electromagnetic is MUCH easier to hide and move "invisibly" from A to B:
  1. Coaxial cable
  2. Waveguide
  3. fibre optic
Though really those are all much the same thing, but for different frequencies. They are all SLOWER than a vacuum! I suspect as well any signal put down a shielded magnetic connection will also be slower than a magnetic field signalling in a vacuum.

So the experiment is nearly the opposite of a "worm hole" or folding space or a bridge. It's just shielding, like a pipe to hide falling water (which if filling the pipe will flow slower than water falling without a pipe). Not a perfect analogy, but good enough.
 
This is a stupendous breakthrough , It will enable scientists to get from one side of the lab to the other instantaneously, saving valuable time in the process .:D:p
 
Baylor... LOL ... Actually the break through is a way to be published as a non-fiction article while blowing great clouds of fiction. (Isn't fiction an interesting but not literally true story?)
 
You're arguing quantum entanglement backwards.
They can't seem to make the stuff work forwards, maybe backwards would work better?
Also ignoring the fact that this is going to require infinite amounts of energy
Neutron star as gating source. Though I suppose you could renovate a volatile gas giant as a stopgap.
:) I like the idea of magnetic virtual electron transfer tubes ordering the universe.
Maybe you couldn't stuff a ship with living organisms in at the get go, but I see no reason why you couldn't shoot a cannonade of radio waves through the thing. It would relay messages without the lag.
 

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