SG1/SGA: BBC News - Wormhole 'no use' for time travel

[morjana]

From BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4564477.stm

(There's a photo of Dr. Who's TARDIS at the site.)

(Please follow the link for the complete article.)

Wormhole 'no use' for time travel
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter


For budding time travellers, the future (or should that be the past?)
is starting to look bleak.

Hypothetical tunnels called wormholes once looked like the best bet
for constructing a real time machine.

These cosmic shortcuts, which link one point in the Universe to
another, are favoured by science fiction writers as a means both of
explaining time travel and of circumventing the limitations imposed
by the speed of light.

The concept of wormholes will be familiar to anyone who has watched
the TV programmes Farscape, Stargate SG1 and Star Trek: Deep Space
Nine.

The opening sequence of the BBC's new Doctor Who series shows the
Tardis hurtling through a "vortex" that suspiciously resembles a
wormhole - although the Doctor's preferred method of travel is not
explained in detail.

But the idea of building these so-called traversable wormholes is
looking increasingly shaky, according to two new scientific analyses.

Remote connection

A common analogy used to visualise these phenomena involves marking
two holes at opposite ends of a sheet of paper, to represent distant
points in the Universe. One can then bend the paper over so that the
two remote points are positioned on top of each other.

[The wormholes] you would like to build - the predictable ones where
you can say Mr Spock will land in New York at 2pm on this day - those
look like they will fall apart ... Stephen Hsu, University of Oregon


If it were possible to contort space-time in this way, a person might
step through a wormhole and emerge at a remote time or distant
location.

The person would pass through a region of the wormhole called the
throat, which flares out on either side.

According to one idea, a wormhole could be kept open by filling its
throat, or the region around it, with an ingredient called exotic
matter.

This is strange stuff indeed, and explaining it requires scientists
to look beyond the laws of classical physics to the world of quantum
mechanics.

Exotic matter is repelled, rather than attracted, by gravity and is
said to have negative energy - meaning it has even less than empty
space.

**snippity doo-dah**

© BBC MMV


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Morjana

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[Lida]

This person's manner of writing "repels" rather than "attracts" me. I think I may have an answer for the scientists though....the exotic matter they have searching for is probably between his ears.

Thanks for the article morjana. Very "informative" reading. But then the BBC is known for it's great reporting.

[SazZat]

But all us who watch Stargate and other sci-fi know that somewhere out there is a race far ore advanced. We all know that we are not thinking to our full and this means that how can anyone determine at the moment if time travel can or cannot happen. Yes we aren't at the stage of advancement to be able to explore it now, but who knows how advanced we could become in the future?
For all we know some alien race could contact earth tomorrow and everything we know and except could all change.

[osirisi]

From the most recent article saying that it may not be possible after all

According to one idea, a wormhole could be kept open by filling its
throat, or the region around it, with an ingredient called exotic
matter.

This is strange stuff indeed, and explaining it requires scientists
to look beyond the laws of classical physics to the world of quantum
mechanics.

Exotic matter is repelled, rather than attracted, by gravity and is
said to have negative energy - meaning it has even less than empty
space.

Then from an earlier BBC article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4564477.stm
"New calculations suggest that wormholes large and stable enough to allow intergalactic travel really can exist.
The possibility that the cosmos is peppered with wormholes, short cuts through space and time, has long intrigued scientists.

Current models, based on Einstein's general theory of relativity, suggest that only tiny quantum-sized wormholes may exist.

A type of negative-energy filling, known as "exotic matter", keeps them open. However, the difficulty of producing exotic matter limits the size of wormholes to the sub-atomic scale.

Now, says New Scientist magazine, a Russian theorist has come up with a calculation for a large, stable wormhole that is compatible with the known laws of physics."

Can someone come up with a conclusive answer as to what the BBC reporter in the most recent article is saying is and isn't possible?

*will now crawl off to sleep and may be back later to delete this post when she fully realises that she had no coherent point to make*