A wormhole or wormhole, in theory, is an intersection of time and space that significantly reduces the time of long-distance travel throughout the universe. The concept of a “wormhole” was born thanks to the general theory of relativity. Wormholes have not yet been studied and carry a colossal danger in the form of sudden contacts with unexplored matter, high radiation and other unknown collapses.
Wormhole theory
Back in 1935, physicists and Nathan Rosen discovered the theory of general relativity, which proposed the existence of “bridges” across space and time. These paths are called “Einstein-Rosen bridges” or wormholes. These bridges connect two different points in time and space, theoretically creating a path that reduces travel time and travel distance.
In theory, it contains two holes, which are then connected. The beginnings of these holes are most likely spherical. They then move into a straight section, although it is possible that this could form a circle, providing the traveler with a longer path than the traditional route.
Einstein's theory of general relativity mathematically suggests the existence of wormholes, but to date none have been discovered by astrophysicists. The only thing that suggests the presence of a CN is the negative mass, which can be detected by the way its gravity affects the light passing by.
Some of the statements of the general theory of relativity allow the existence of wormholes, some of which consist of black holes. True, by its nature, a black hole, which arises from the explosion of a dying star, cannot itself create a wormhole.
Science fiction is replete with stories of travel through wormholes. But the actual reality of such a journey does not yet seem real.
The first problem is the size of the wormholes. Conventional wormholes, according to scientists, have a size of 10-33 centimeters. However, as the Universe expands, it is possible that some of them could stretch to larger sizes.
Another problem for travelers comes from the unexplored stability of the wormhole. The Einstein-Rosen research was simply useless for practical travel. But more recent research has shown that a wormhole containing "exotic matter" can remain open to exploration and unchanged for long periods of time.
Exotic matter, which is different from dark matter or antimatter, contains negative energy density as well as negative pressure.
If a wormhole contains enough exotic matter, be it natural or man-made, it could theoretically be used as a way to send information or travelers through space.
Wormholes can not only connect two separate regions of the universe, but they can also connect two different galaxies. Interestingly, some scientists suggest that if one entrance to the KN is moved in a certain learned order, then this may subsequently allow travel to occur. Despite this, British astrophysicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking argues that using CN for travel is not yet possible.
"A wormhole doesn't actually give you the ability to travel back in time," wrote NASA scientist Eric Christian.
Stills from the movie "Interstellar" with a wormhole (2014)
The space epic “Interstellar” (we are talking about a science fiction film released in October 2014) tells about astronauts who, in search of options for saving humanity, discover the “road of life” represented by a mysterious tunnel.
This passage inexplicably appears near Saturn and in space-time leads a person to a distant galaxy, thereby providing a chance to find planets inhabited by living beings. Planets that can become a second Home for people.
The hypothesis about the existence of a movie tunnel, called a “wormhole” or “wormhole” by scientists, was preceded by a real physical theory, which was proposed by one of the first astrophysicists and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology, Kip Thorne.
Kip Thorne helped astronomer, astrophysicist, popularizer of science and one of those who initiated the project to search for extraterrestrial intelligence - Carl Sagan - to create a model of a wormhole for his novel Contact. The persuasiveness of the visual images in the film for space scientists is so obvious that astrophysicists admit that these are perhaps the most accurate images of wormholes and black holes that exist in world cinema.
There is only one “small” detail in this film that haunts the attentive viewer: flying in something like this on a space express is, of course, great, but will the pilots be able to not give up during this very interstellar movement?
The creators of the space blockbuster chose not to mention that the original theory of wormholes belonged to other leading theorists of astrophysics - Albert Einstein began to develop it together with his assistant Nathan Rosen. These scientists tried to solve Einstein's equations for general relativity so that the result was a mathematical model of the entire Universe, along with the forces of gravity and the elementary particles that form matter. In the process of all this, an attempt was made to imagine space as two geometric planes connected to each other by “bridges.”
In parallel, but independently from Einstein, similar work was carried out by another physicist, Ludwig Flamm, who in 1916, also while solving Einstein’s equations, made his discovery of such “bridges.”
All three “bridge builders” suffered a common disappointment, since the “theory of everything that exists” turned out to be unviable: such “bridges” in theory did not act at all like real elementary particles.
Nevertheless, in 1935, Einstein and Rosen published a paper where they outlined their own theory of tunnels in the space-time continuum. This work, as conceived by the authors, was obviously supposed to encourage other generations of scientists to think about the possibility of applying such a theory.
Physicist from Princeton University John Wheeler at one time introduced the designation “wormhole” into the vocabulary, which was used in the early years to study the construction of models of “bridges” according to the Einstein-Rosen theory. Wheeler noticed: such a “bridge” is painfully reminiscent of a passage gnawed by a worm in a fruit. Let's imagine an ant crawling from one side of a pear to the other - it can either crawl along the entire curved surface, or, taking a shortcut, cross the fruit through a wormhole tunnel.
What if we imagine that our three-dimensional space-time continuum is the skin of a pear, that a curved surface encloses a much larger “mass”? Perhaps the Einstein-Rosen “bridge” is the very tunnel that cuts through this “mass”; it allows starship pilots to reduce the distance in space between two points. Probably, in this case we are talking about a real mathematical solution to the general theory of relativity.
According to Wheeler, the mouths of the Einstein-Rosen “bridges” are very reminiscent of the so-called Schwarzschild black hole - simple matter that has a spherical shape and is so dense that its gravitational force cannot be overcome even by light. Astronomers have a strong opinion about the existence of “black holes”. They believe that these formations are born when very massive stars “collapse” or die out.
How substantiated is the hypothesis that a “black hole” is the same as a “wormhole” or a tunnel that allows long-distance space flights? Maybe, from a mathematical point of view, this statement is true. But only in theory: there will be no survivors in such an expedition.
The Schwarzschild model represents the dark middle of a “black hole” as a singular point or central neutral stationary ball with infinite density. Wheeler's calculations show the consequences of what happened in the event of the formation of such a “wormhole” when two singular points (“Schwarzschild black holes”) in two distant parts of the Universe converge in its “mass” and create a tunnel between them.
The researcher found out that such a “wormhole” is of an unstable nature: a tunnel first forms and then collapses, after which only two singular points (“black holes”) remain again. The procedure for the appearance and slamming of the tunnel takes place so lightning fast that even a ray of light cannot penetrate through it, not to mention an astronaut trying to slip through - he will be completely swallowed by the “black hole”. No joke - we are talking about instant death, because gravitational forces of crazy power will tear a person to pieces.
"Black holes" and "white spots"
At the same time as the film, Thorne released the book The Science of Interstellar. In this work he confirms: “Any body - living or inanimate - at the moment the tunnel collapses will be crushed and torn into pieces!”
For another, alternative option - Kerr's rotating “black hole” - researchers of “white spots” in interplanetary travel have found a different solution to the general theory of relativity. The singularity inside Kerr’s “black hole” has a different shape, not spherical, but ring-shaped.
Certain models of it can give a person a chance to survive in interstellar flight, but only if the ship passes this hole exclusively through the center of the ring. Something like space basketball, only the price of a hit here is not extra points: what’s at stake is the existence of the starship and its crew.
The author of the book “The Science of Interstellar,” Kip Thorne, doubts the state of this theory. Back in 1987, he wrote an article about flying through a “wormhole,” where he pointed out an important detail: the neck of the Kerr tunnel has a very unreliable section, which is called the “Cauchy horizon.”
As the corresponding calculations show, as soon as the body tries to pass past this point, the tunnel collapses. Moreover, subject to some stabilization of the “wormhole”, it, as quantum theory says, will immediately be filled with fast high-energy particles.
Consequently, as soon as you stick into Kerr’s “black hole,” you will be left with a dry, fried crust.
The reason is “terrible long-range action”?
The fact is that physicists have not yet adapted the classical laws of gravity to quantum theory - this branch of mathematics is too difficult to understand, and many scientists have not given it an exact definition.
At the same time, Princeton scientist Juan Malsadena and his Stanford colleague Leonard Susskind suggested that wormholes are apparently nothing more than the material embodiment of entanglement at the time when quantum objects are connected - regardless of whether they are distant from each other friend.
Albert Einstein had his own name for such entanglement - “terrible long-range action”; the great physicist did not even think of agreeing with the generally accepted point of view. Despite this, many experiments have proven the existence of quantum entanglement. Moreover, it is already used for commercial purposes - it protects online data transmission, for example, banking transactions.
According to Malsadena and Susskind, in large volumes, quantum entanglement can affect changes in the geometry of the space-time continuum and contribute to the emergence of “wormholes” in the form of linked “black holes.” But the hypothesis of these scientists does not allow for the emergence of traversable interstellar tunnels.
According to Malsadena, these tunnels, on the one hand, do not provide the opportunity to fly faster than the speed of light, and on the other hand, they can still help astronauts meet there, inside, with someone “other.” There is, however, no pleasure from such a meeting, since the meeting will be followed by inevitable death from a gravitational impact at the center of the “black hole.”
In a word, “black holes” are a real obstacle to human exploration of space. In this case, what might “wormholes” be? According to Avi Loeb, a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, people have many options in this regard: since there is no theory that combines general relativity with quantum mechanics, we are not aware of the full range of possible space-time structures where wormholes may appear "
They're collapsing
But here, too, not everything is so simple. The same Kip Thorne in 1987 established the peculiarity for any “wormhole”, corresponding to the general theory of relativity, to collapse if it is not tried to be kept open due to the so-called exotic matter having negative energy or antigravity. Thorne assures: the fact of the existence of exomatter can be established experimentally.
Experiments will show that quantum fluctuations in a vacuum are apparently capable of creating negative pressure between two mirrors that are placed very close together.
In turn, according to Avi Loeb, if we observe the so-called dark energy, then these studies will give even more reason to believe in the existence of exotic matter.
A scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics says that “...we have seen galaxies throughout recent cosmic history moving away from us at an increasing speed over time, as if they were under the influence of antigravity - this accelerating expansion of the Universe can be explained if the Universe is filled with a substance with negative pressure, exactly the material that is needed to create a wormhole...”
At the same time, both Loeb and Thorne believe that even if a wormhole could appear naturally, it would require a mass of exotic matter. Only a highly developed civilization will be capable of accumulating such an energy reserve and subsequent stabilization of such a tunnel.
There is also “no agreement among the comrades” in their views on this theory. Here's what their colleague Malsadena thinks of Loeb and Thorne's findings, for example:
“...I believe that the idea of a stable traversable wormhole is not intelligible enough and, apparently, does not correspond to the known laws of physics...” Sabine Hossenfelder from the Scandinavian Institute for Theoretical Physics in Sweden completely smashes Loeb-Thorn’s conclusions to smithereens: “... We have there is absolutely no evidence for the existence of exotic matter. Moreover, there is a widespread belief that it cannot exist, because if it did exist, the vacuum would be unstable..."
Even if such exotic matter existed, Hossenfelder develops his idea, moving inside it would be extremely unpleasant: each time the sensations would be directly dependent on the degree of curvature of the space-time structure around the tunnel and on the energy density inside it. Sabine Hossenfelder concludes:
“...This is very similar to “black holes”: the tidal forces are too great and a person will be torn to pieces...”
Paradoxically, despite his contributions to the Interstellar film, Thorne also doesn't particularly believe that such a passable tunnel could ever emerge. And the possibility of astronauts passing through it (without any harm!) - and even more so. He himself admits this in his book:
“...If they [tunnels] can exist, then I very much doubt that they can arise in the astrophysical Universe naturally...”
...So then believe in science fiction films!
A group of physicists from Germany and Greece under the general leadership of Burkhard Clayhaus presented a fundamentally new look at the problem wormholes. That's what they're called hypothetical objects where the curvature of space and time occurs.
They are believed to be tunnels through which one can travel to other worlds in one moment.
Wormholes, or wormholes, as they are also called, are known to every science fiction fan, where these objects are described very vividly and impressively (although in books they are more often called zero-space). It is thanks to them that heroes can move from one galaxy to another in a very short time. As for real wormholes, the situation with them is much more complicated. It is still unclear whether they actually exist, or whether this is all the result of the wild imagination of theoretical physicists.
According to traditional views, wormholes are some hypothetical property of our Universe, or rather, space and time. According to the concept of the Einstein-Rosen bridge, at every moment in time certain tunnels can appear in our Universe through which you can get from one point in space to another almost instantly (that is, without losing time).
It would seem that you can teleport with their help to your heart's content! But here’s the problem: firstly, these wormholes are extremely small (only elementary particles can easily roam through them), and secondly, they exist for an extremely short time, millionths of a second. That is why it is extremely difficult to study them - until now, all models of wormholes have not been experimentally confirmed.
Nevertheless, scientists still have some idea of what could be inside such a tunnel (although, alas, it is also only theoretical). It is believed that everything there is filled with so-called exotic matter (not to be confused with dark matter, these are different matters). And this matter got its nickname from the fact that it consists of fundamentally different elementary particles. And because of this, most physical laws are not observed in it - in particular, energy can have a negative density, the force of gravity does not attract, but repels objects, etc. In general, inside the tunnel everything is completely different from normal people. But it is precisely this irregular matter that provides that very miraculous transition through the wormhole.
As a matter of fact, Einstein’s famous general theory of relativity is very loyal to the possibility of the existence of wormholes - it does not refute the existence of such tunnels (although it does not confirm). Well, what is not prohibited is, as we know, permitted. Therefore, many astrophysicists, since the middle of the last century, have been actively trying to find traces of at least some more or less stable wormhole.
Strictly speaking, their interest can be understood - if it turns out that such a tunnel is possible in principle, then traveling through it to distant worlds will become a very simple matter (of course, provided that the wormhole is located not far from the solar system). However, the search for this object is complicated by the fact that scientists still, strictly speaking, do not quite understand what exactly to look for. In fact, it is impossible to directly see this hole, since it, like black holes, sucks everything into itself (including radiation), but does not release anything. We need some indirect signs of its existence, but the question is - what exactly?
And recently, a group of physicists from Germany and Greece, under the general leadership of Burkhard Clayhaus from the University of Oldenburg (Germany), in order to alleviate the suffering of astrophysicists, presented a fundamentally new look at the problem of wormholes. From their point of view, these tunnels can really exist in the Universe and be quite stable. And, according to Clayhouse’s group, there is no exotic matter inside them.
Scientists believe that the emergence of wormholes was caused by quantum fluctuations that were characteristic of the early Universe almost immediately after the Big Bang and gave rise to the so-called quantum foam. Let me remind you that quantum foam is a kind of conditional concept that can be used as a qualitative description of subatomic space-time turbulence at very short distances (on the order of the Planck length, that is, a distance of 10 -33 cm).
Figuratively speaking, quantum foam can be imagined as follows: imagine that somewhere in very short periods of time, in very small regions of space, energy sufficient to transform this piece of space into a black hole can spontaneously appear. And this energy appears not just out of nowhere, but as a result of the collision of particles with antiparticles and their mutual annihilation. And then a kind of seething cauldron will appear before our eyes, in which black holes continuously appear and immediately disappear.
So, according to the authors of the study, Immediately after the Big Bang, our Universe consisted entirely of quantum foam.. And they arose in her at every moment of time not only black holes, but also wormholes. And then the inflation (that is, expansion) of the Universe should not only inflate it to enormous sizes, but also at the same time sharply increase the holes and make them stable. So much so that it became possible for even fairly large bodies to penetrate them.
However, there is one catch here. The fact is that although large bodies, according to this model, can enter a wormhole, the gravitational influence on them upon entry should be very small. Otherwise they will simply be torn into pieces. But if the curvature of space-time at the entrance is “smooth,” then the journey through it itself cannot be instantaneous. It, according to the researchers’ calculations, will take tens or even hundreds of light years, since the exit from the wormhole, accessible to a large body, will be very far from the entrance.
Researchers believe that detecting these objects in the Universe, although not easy, is still possible. Even though they may be similar to black holes, there are still differences. For example, in a black hole, gas that falls beyond the event horizon immediately stops emitting X-rays, while gas that falls into a wormhole (which does not have an event horizon) continues to do so. By the way, similar behavior of gas was recently recorded by Hubble in the vicinity of the object Sagittarius A*, which is traditionally considered a massive black hole. But judging by the behavior of the gas, it may be a stable wormhole.
According to the Clayhouse group's concept, there may be other signs indicating the existence of wormholes. Theoretically, one can imagine a situation where astronomers will directly note the inadequacy of the picture behind the wormhole if the telescope accidentally turns into its sector of the starry sky. In this case, it will show a picture tens or hundreds of light years away, which astronomers can easily distinguish from what should actually be in this place. The star's gravity (if it is on the other side of the wormhole) can also distort the light of distant stars passing near the wormhole.
It should be noted that the work of Greek and German physicists, although purely theoretical, is very important for astronomers. For the first time, she systematizes all the possible signs of wormholes that can be observed. This means that, guided by it, these tunnels can be detected. That is, now scientists know what exactly they need to look for.
Although, on the other hand, if the Clayhouse group's model is true, the value of wormholes for humanity is sharply reduced. After all, they do not provide an immediate transition to other worlds. Although, of course, you should still study their properties in case they are useful for something else...
The science
The recently released visually arresting film Inresttellar is based on real scientific concepts such as rotating black holes, wormholes and time dilation.
But if you are not familiar with these concepts, you may be a little confused while watching.
In the film, a team of space explorers goes to extragalactic travel through a wormhole. On the other side, they find themselves in a different solar system with a rotating black hole instead of a star.
They are in a race against space and time to complete their mission. This kind of space travel may seem a little confusing, but it is based on basic principles of physics.
Here are the main ones 5 concepts of physics Things you need to know to understand Interstellar:
Artificial gravity
The biggest problem we humans face during long-term space travel is weightlessness. We were born on Earth and our bodies have adapted to certain gravitational conditions, but when we are in space for a long time, our muscles begin to weaken.
The heroes in the movie Interstellar also face this problem.
To cope with this, scientists are creating artificial gravity in spacecraft. One way to do this is to spin up the spaceship, just like in the movie. The rotation creates a centrifugal force that pushes objects toward the outer walls of the ship. This repulsion is similar to gravity, only in the opposite direction.
This is a form of artificial gravity you experience when you are driving around a small radius curve and feel as if you are being pushed outward, away from the center point of the curve. In a spinning spaceship, the walls become your floor.
Rotating black hole in space
Astronomers, albeit indirectly, have observed in our Universe rotating black holes. Nobody knows what's at the center of a black hole, but scientists have a name for it -singularity .
Rotating black holes distort the space around them differently than stationary black holes.
This distortion process is called "inertial frame entrainment" or the Lense-Thirring effect, and it affects how the black hole will look by distorting space, and more importantly the space-time around it. The black hole you see in the movie is enoughvery close to the scientific concept.
- The spaceship Endurance is heading towards Gargantua - fictional supermassive black hole with a mass 100 million times greater than the Sun.
- It is 10 billion light years away from Earth and has several planets orbiting it. Gargantua spins at an astonishing 99.8 percent of the speed of light.
- Garagantua's accretion disk contains gas and dust with the temperature of the Sun's surface. The disk supplies the Gargantua planets with light and heat.
The complex appearance of the black hole in the film is due to the fact that the image of the accretion disk is distorted by gravitational lensing. Two arcs appear in the image: one formed above the black hole, and the other below it.
Mole Hole
The wormhole or wormhole used by the crew in Interstellar is one of the phenomena in the film that whose existence has not been proven. It is hypothetical, but very convenient in the plots of science fiction stories where you need to overcome a large space distance.
Just wormholes are a kind of shortest path through space. Any object with mass creates a hole in space, which means space can be stretched, warped, and even folded.
A wormhole is like a fold in the fabric of space (and time) that connects two very distant regions, which helps space travelers travel a long distance in a short period of time.
The official name for a wormhole is an “Einstein-Rosen bridge,” as it was first proposed by Albert Einstein and his colleague Nathan Rosen in 1935.
- In 2D diagrams, the mouth of a wormhole is shown as a circle. However, if we could see the wormhole, it would look like a sphere.
- On the surface of the sphere, a gravitationally distorted view of space on the other side of the “hole” would be visible.
- The dimensions of the wormhole in the film: 2 km in diameter and the transfer distance is 10 billion light years.
Gravitational time dilation
Gravitational time dilation is a real phenomenon observed on Earth. It arises because time is relative. This means that it flows differently for different coordinate systems.
When you are in a strong gravitational environment, time moves slower for you compared to people in a weak gravitational environment.
There are many interesting things in outer space that are still incomprehensible to humans. We know the theory about black holes and we even know where they are. However, of greater interest are wormholes, with the help of which movie characters move throughout the Universe in seconds. How do these tunnels work and why is it better for a person not to go into them?
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The films Star Trek, Doctor Who and the Marvel universe have one thing in common: traveling through space at great speed. If today it takes at least seven months to fly to Mars, then in the world of science fiction this can be done in a split second. High-speed travel is carried out using so-called wormholes (wormholes) - this is a hypothetical feature of space-time, which is a “tunnel” in space at each moment in time. To understand the principle of operation of the “hole”, you just have to remember Alice from “Through the Looking Glass”. There, the role of a wormhole was played by a mirror: Alice could instantly find herself in another place just by touching it.
The picture below shows how the tunnel works. In films, this is what happens: characters board a spaceship, quickly fly to the portal and, upon entering it, immediately find themselves in the right place, for example, on the other side of the Universe. Alas, even in theory it works differently.
Photo source: YouTubeGeneral relativity allows for the existence of such tunnels, but so far astronomers have not been able to find one. According to theorists, the first wormholes were less than a meter in size. It can be assumed that with the expansion of the Universe they also increased. But let's get to the main question: even if wormholes exist, why is using them a very bad idea? Astrophysicist Paul Sutter explained what the problem is with wormholes and why it is better for a person not to go there.
Wormhole theory
First, it’s worth finding out how black holes operate. Imagine a ball on a stretched elastic fabric. As it approaches the center, it decreases in size and at the same time becomes denser. The fabric bends more and more under its weight, until finally it becomes so small that it simply closes over it, and the ball disappears from sight. In the black hole itself, the curvature of space-time is infinite - this state of physics is called a singularity. It has neither space nor time in human understanding.
Photo source: Pikabu.ru According to the theory of relativity, nothing can travel faster than light. This means that nothing can get out of this gravitational field once it gets into it. A region of space from which there is no exit is called a black hole. Its boundary is determined by the trajectory of the light rays that were the first to lose the opportunity to escape. It's called the event horizon of a black hole. Example: looking out of the window, we do not see what is beyond the horizon, and a conventional observer cannot understand what is happening inside the boundaries of an invisible dead star.
There are five types of black holes, but we are interested in the stellar-mass black hole. Such objects are formed at the final stage of the life of a celestial body. In general, the death of a star can result in the following things:
1. It will turn into a very dense extinct star, consisting of a number of chemical elements - it is a white dwarf;
2. A neutron star - has the approximate mass of the Sun and a radius of about 10-20 kilometers, inside it consists of neutrons and other particles, and outside it is enclosed in a thin but hard shell;
3. Into a black hole, the gravitational attraction of which is so strong that it can suck in objects flying at the speed of light.
When a supernova occurs, that is, the “rebirth” of a star, a black hole is formed, which can only be detected due to the radiation emitted. It is she who is capable of generating a wormhole.
If you imagine a black hole as a funnel, then an object falling into it loses its event horizon and falls inside. So where is the wormhole? It is located in exactly the same funnel, attached to the black hole tunnel, where the exits face outward. Scientists believe that the other end of the wormhole is connected to a white hole (the opposite of a black hole, into which nothing can fall).
Why you don't need to go into a wormhole
In white hole theory, not everything is so simple. Firstly, it is not clear how exactly to get into a white hole from a black one. Calculations around wormholes show that they are extremely unstable. Wormholes can evaporate or “spit out” a black hole and trap them again.
If a spaceship or a person falls into a black hole, he will get stuck there. There will be no way back - from the side of the black hole, for sure, because he will not see the event horizon. But the unfortunate person can try to find a white hole? No, because he does not see boundaries, so he will have to “fall” towards the singularity of a black hole, which may have access to the singularity of a white one. Or maybe not.
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