Wormholes, “wormholes”: the simplest way to trick distance

In science fiction, wormholes are often usedfor traveling long distances in space. Are these magical bridges possible in reality? With all my enthusiasm, the future of mankind in space (and here, under space, I do not mean the solar system, and not even the galaxy) looks foggy. We are bags of meat and water, there is still more water, and the stars are very, very far away. Armed with the most optimistic technology of space flight, which can only be imagined, it is unlikely that it will be possible to reach another star for human life.

Reality tells us that even the closestthe stars are inconceivably far, and it will take a tremendous amount of energy and time to make the journey. Reality says that we need a ship that somehow can hold out for hundreds or thousands of years, during which generations and generations of astronauts will be born, live their lives and die on the way to another star.

Science fiction, on the other hand, teases usseductive methods of advanced movement. Cut in the warp engine and watch the stars pass by, and the trip to Alpha Centauri is like a pleasure cruise.

Even easier to take a wormhole. A magic bridge connecting two points in space and time with each other. Just determine your destination, wait until the stargate has stabilized and move. Move to the place behind the half-galaxy from you.

It would be nice. Someone must precisely invent these wormholes, paving — no, cutting through — for us, a path to a bold new future of intergalactic travel. Where did these wormholes come from and why do we still not use them?

Wormhole, also known as Einstein Bridge -Rosen, is a theoretical method of penetrating space and time so that you can connect two points in space together. And then move instantly from one to another.

A classic example of a wormhole demonstration wasshown in the film Interstellar: draw two points on paper, then fold the paper and pierce both points with a pencil. Well, on paper everything is clear, but what about physics?

Einstein showed that gravity is notby force, which attracts matter like magnetism, but rather distorts space-time. The moon thinks that it is moving in a straight line through space, but in fact follows a curved path created by the gravity of the Earth.

Albert Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen decided thatyou can confuse space-time so closely that two points will share the same physical location. If you then manage to stabilize all this, you can carefully separate the two areas of space-time so that they will be in one place, but at any distance from each other.

Dive into the gravity well on one sidewormhole and instantly find yourself on the other side. Over millions or billions of light years. And although it is theoretically perfectly possible to create a wormhole, in practice, from what we know at the moment, it is almost impossible.

The first major problem is thatwormholes are impassable according to the general theory of relativity. Think about it: the physics that predicts these things does not allow them to be used as a method of transportation. This is a serious argument against them.

Second, even if it is possible to create a wormhole,they will be completely unstable and collapse immediately after formation. If you try to go one way, you can easily fall into a black hole.

Third, even if they are passable and stable, the attempt of some material to pass through them - even photons of light - can lead to collapse.

However, there is a glimmer of hope, because physicistshave not fully figured out how to combine gravity and quantum mechanics. This means that the Universe itself can hide the facts about wormholes, which we do not yet understand. There is a possibility that they appeared naturally as part of the Big Bang, when the space-time of the whole Universe was entangled in a singularity.

Astronomers have suggested searching for wormholes in space, watching their gravity distort the light of the stars behind them. But so far have not found anything.

There is also the possibility that wormholesappear in a natural way, like virtual particles, which, as we know, exist. Only will be extremely small, in Planck scale. You will need a small spacecraft.

One of the most fascinating consequenceswormholes in that they can be used for time travel. Here is how it works. First, create a wormhole in the lab. Then take one end of the wormhole, place it on the spacecraft and fly at a speed close to the speed of light, so that the effect of time dilation works. Only a few years will pass for people on a spacecraft, while hundreds or even thousands of years will pass on Earth. If you manage to keep the wormhole stable, open and passable, it would be very interesting to travel through it.

If you go in one direction, you will notYou will only overcome the distance between the wormholes, but also move from one time to another. And it should work in both directions, back and forth. Some physicists like Leonard Susskind believe that this will not work, because it violates two fundamental principles of physics: the conservation of local energy and the principle of energy-time uncertainty.

Unfortunately, it seems that wormholes shouldstay in science fiction for the foreseeable future and maybe forever. Even if it becomes possible to create a wormhole, it will have to be maintained stable and open, and also to figure out how to keep matter from collapsing. However, if we ever accomplish this feat, the issue of traveling in space will be resolved.