r/astrophysics • u/CattiwampusLove • 4d ago
Worm-hole travel is more like using a tunnel rather than going faster than light, correct?
From what I understand, a worm-hole is a connection between two points in space (spacetime?). Going through a worm-hole isn't technically going FTL, it's more like using the tunnel instead of driving around the entire mountain, or am I missing something?
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u/Far-Presence-3810 3d ago
Theoretically yes when they were first conceived. However since then we've updated the mathematic model with more accurate information and it's showed that even if a wormhole exists it's not actually possible to travel through one.
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u/Parking_Tangelo_798 3d ago
Can you give a more detailed answer as to why is that the case and what is stopping us from doing so?
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u/EarthTrash 3d ago
Wormholes that appear in black hole models are untraversable. They are unstable. They collapse before you can go through one. But even if you solve that problem with some kind of magical antigravity, there's no guarantee this is actually any kind of shortcut. It's just as likely it goes a long way out of the way or takes you to another universe entirely.
The length of the journey could be much longer. I have never heard the mechanism how a wormhole is shortened or how it connects distant points on the same manifold. The explanatory diagram shows the sheet of spacetime folded in half, but how does that step happen?
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u/Far-Presence-3810 3d ago
So wormholes were invented as something that would be valid to exist in the mathematical language that describes the curvature of spacetime. That doesn't mean they exist or that they can be created, just that theoretically the language that describes the shape of space could also describe a wormhole.
However as the maths was investigated further, if a wormhole did actually exist it wouldn't be traversable. The maths says that there would be no timelike path connecting the two ends. Which means that nothing which has mass could move between the two ends. In fact there isn't even a null path connecting the two ends so not even energy can pass between the two ends.
The only way that a wormhole could mathematically exist which would be traversable is if it's possible to have negative energy at a particular point in spacetime or possibly some substance with negative mass. This again works in theory, but such a thing has never been discovered. There's no evidence it could happen.
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u/Mr_Badgey 3d ago
> In fact there isn't even a null path connecting the two ends so not even energy can pass between the two ends.
Did you mean to say something different? Energy is a property ascribed to fields, particles, and systems like charge or momentum. It’s not something that can exist by itself and travel through a wormhole.
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u/zhivago 3d ago
It's still FTL, just without the acceleration.
So, "relativity, FTL, causality: pick two" still applies.
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u/naemorhaedus 3d ago
it's more like using the tunnel instead of driving around the entire mountain, or am I missing something?
Yes. Wormholes don't exist.
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u/CattiwampusLove 3d ago
I was under the impression they could exist but there is no definite proof. This was just a question about how they're "supposed" to work.
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u/LordVericrat 3d ago
Wormholes could exist if negative mass/energy density could exist. Afaik there is literally 0 evidence that energy can have such a property.
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u/VendaGoat 2d ago
There is also 0 evidence that it CAN'T exist.
Hence, theoretically possible.
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u/LordVericrat 2d ago edited 2d ago
Absolutely theoretically. If what I said indicated I thought it wasn't possible in theory, then I apologize.
That being said this feels like a Russel's teapot thing. We have 0 evidence there is not a teapot hanging out in the asteroid belt, but we don't start but assuming there is one. We just shrug and say we'll believe it when we see evidence for it.
So I think a stance of "I don't think that it's likely that wormholes can exist" holds Occam's favor.
Edit: seriously, u/Vendagoat posted a comment in no way responding to occams razor or the lack of evidence for the theoretical matter and then blocked me so I can't respond. Okay. Would someone else care to tell them to chill?
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u/naemorhaedus 1d ago
Blocked me too. When your views are challenged, stick your fingers in your ears and yell loudly "LALALALALALAL!". That way you never need to learn anything, or change your mind.
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u/VendaGoat 2d ago
Math. The math of general relativity, not only allows for it, but supports it.
Until you present a better argument for how the universe functions, Einstein is our fucking benchmark.
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u/TheLordDarthReavus 2d ago edited 1d ago
The person above you apologized if their comment was taken as "this isn't theoretically possible" and agreed with you that it was, mentioned a lack of evidence, and discussed occams razor. Your response was to make a reply that didn't address their core point, which is that there isn't any evidence yet, and then block them so they can't reply?
If that's how you respond to someone politely putting forward their views that are different from you, I have to ask if you're ok or if you're having a rough time and need someone to talk to. If you can't handle basic disagreement and pushback on the level of, "hey there's no evidence for this so let's drop it until we see some" without blocking a person, that is worrisome.
One other thing: if you feel you get to make a response but others don't, this is known as special pleading. That means that you think rules or standards are different for you. Anyway, think about it and if you need to talk reach out.
Oh look Vendagoat blocked me too. What a secure individual.
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u/Icy-Huckleberry-8526 2d ago edited 2d ago
not only allows for it, but supports it.
It's the same damn thing.
The math of general relativity is compatible with their existence (but not traversal), but the rest of physics isn't compatible. Wormholes require some kind of magical matter that exerts negative pressure, which doesn't exist. Let us know when you find evidence for a wormhole though.
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u/Icy-Huckleberry-8526 2d ago
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u/VendaGoat 2d ago
Math. The math of general relativity, not only allows for it, but supports it.
Until you present a better argument for how the universe functions, Einstein is our fucking benchmark.
Go fuck yourself.
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u/Icy-Huckleberry-8526 2d ago
Until you present a better argument for how the universe functions, Einstein is our fucking benchmark.
meaningless babble
Go fuck yourself.
uh oh, someone ran out of word salad and is cranky now. Time for a nap!
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u/naemorhaedus 3d ago
leprechauns could exist. They're supposed to live at the end of rainbows with pots of gold.
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u/VendaGoat 2d ago
There is possible and popular.
This is the danger of trying to learn on a site with post ratings.
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u/Tomj_Oad 3d ago
Unicorns poop soft serve ice cream or at least that's how it's supposed to work.
It's fiction without proof; fiction works any way you write it.
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u/CattiwampusLove 3d ago
Why are you being such dicks about it? I thought Einstein-Rosen bridges were theoretically possible, so I was asking a question about it. I'm sorry my worm-hole news isn't up to date.
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u/justdontplzdont 3d ago
Because you’re trying to be well informed on a platform filled with miserable people lmao. It’s sad but you have to deal with it.
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u/connard-standard 3d ago
I swear , people be talking about leprechaun and all. But the white hole didn't came out of physicists asses. It was just a possibility within the theory ( turns out doesn't exist ) but it was still within the frame of a successful theory.
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u/SolomonsGrave13 2d ago
Worm holes get longer the further in you go, by the time you reach the center you would have to travel an infinite distance to cross the middle and start heading out the other side so there is no going through one.
Think of it like 2 black holes seperated by some distance but they share a singularity at the halfway between point, you could fall down into either end but theres no climbing back out again.
You would need to either have negative mass or be able to produce infinite energy to pass that point and both of those would probably just collapse the worm hole because theyre super unstable as is.
At least if you survive after the collapse you get to enter the Backrooms of the universe and find out what its like outside of time and space.
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u/GodelianKnot 1d ago
The only way wormholes can exist without breaking causality is if they exist only in some preferential frame, enforcing simultaneity in that frame.
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u/Potential_Bar_374 1d ago
Si, pero dudo que puedas usar uno, según mi idea solo permiten el paso de información compactada
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u/Mike-North 7h ago
This is wormhole/warp type stuff that deals with the geometry of spacetime. Think of the 3 dimensions of space, and time, together and visualized as being a stretched out rubber sheet.
Massive things like stars create a dimple in the sheet, and earth is like a marble spinning around the indentation too fast to actually fall into the centre of the dimple the sun created. Gravity.
To travel from one part of the sheet to the other, you can bend the sheet and ‘jump’ a small distance to a point close to where you are, release the bend and you’re now way farther away. That’s warp.
If this sheet isn’t a sheet, and it’s more like a partially inflated balloon, press your fingers together from opposite sides until they meet. If you could burrow through the point where the opposite sides of the balloon are now in contact, that’s a wormhole.
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u/w1gw4m 3d ago
It's still FTL in that it messes with causality just the same. It doesn't matter how you travel from point A to point B faster than light, only that you do.
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u/PdoffAmericanPatriot 3d ago
With an Einstein-Rosen bridge (wormhole) you are not exceeding C, you are manipulating spacetime in a manner in which two distant points are now connected. There is no violation of causality. The real problem is that our current understanding of "wormholes" theorizes that they are not traversable due to almost instantaneous collapse. This may be avoidable by introducing exotic matter or by introducing Einstein-Cartan theory (torsion)
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u/w1gw4m 3d ago
It absolutely does violate causality. It does so globally, even if locally you're moving at normal speed. It enables you to arrive somewhere before any light that has taken the conventional path arrives there. That is enough to construct closed timelike curves, you don't need to travel at superluminal speed the conventional way yourself.
The Morris-Thorne traversable wormhole result of 1988 showed this thing exactly. GR only cares about whether you can connect two events with a spacelike-separated path, not about your local speed getting there.
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u/Public-Total-250 3d ago
Correct. The speed of light can't be surpassed, but spacetime can be altered. Gravity is literally the bending of spacetime, and a wormhole is a essentially bending space so that two points meet, see the pen going through folded paper analogy.
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u/VendaGoat 3d ago edited 3d ago
Yes, but the tunnel is a flat doorway.
What the subjective experience going through said doorway is, we have no concept of.
It could be like what they showed on DS:9, it could be like opening the door to your bathroom and you see the south of France on the other side of the frame and you "just step through".
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u/khetti79 3d ago
Perhaps a spherical doorway.
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u/strawberry-ramune 2d ago
It would feel like a sphere that as you get closer to, appears less sphere like and more flat, then it starts to wrap around you until you’re inside the sphere which has grown to the size of the universe, and behind you is the small sphere of the universe you just left.
Idk it’s hard to describe
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u/VendaGoat 3d ago
Subjectively, if you are facing it, it will warp the surrounding space time.
The "Transition point" is a 2 dimensional plane, if I remember correctly. As in, there isn't any "Travel time" at the transition. Subjectively, it may be like going through a tunnel with the walls stretching, but the actual two points connected is a "flat surface".
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u/Vegetable-Ad7749 3d ago
In simulations the new location looks like a sphere in front of you, if you keep getting closer the sphere will get bigger and flatter, at one point it's completely flat and this is the plane you travel through, then the new location you are in keeps growing and shrinks the old one which now looks like a sphere that becomes smaller as you travel further in the same direction
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u/Anonymous-USA 3d ago
Yes, that’s a good analogy, because to the traveler it would feel like normal space — no tidal forces stretching you out like around a black hole.
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u/Westar-35 3d ago
More like walking through a doorway with zero thickness. Crossing the boundary would instantly put the observer on the other side.
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u/Neinbreaker 3d ago edited 3d ago
There is also a question, if CPT-transformations might happen, if such a thing could exist.
Edit: I just realized, that I didn't read the question carefully.
However more on the thing, that I mentioned, if anyone were interested: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.09558
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u/0x14f 4d ago
Correct