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posted by Fnord666 on Monday August 31 2020, @02:12PM   Printer-friendly
from the no-time-soon dept.

One Theory Beyond the Standard Model Could Allow Wormholes that You Could Actually Fly Through

Wormholes are a popular feature in science fiction, the means through which spacecraft can achieve faster-than-light (FTL) travel and instantaneously move from one point in spacetime to another.

And while the General Theory of Relativity forbids the existence of "traversable wormholes", recent research has shown that they are actually possible within the domain of quantum physics.

The only downsides are that they would actually take longer to traverse than normal space and/or likely be microscopic.

In a new study performed by a pair of Ivy League scientists, the existence of physics beyond the Standard Model could mean that there are wormholes out there that are not only large enough to be traversable, but entirely safe for human travelers looking to get from point A to point B.

The study, titled "Humanly traversable wormholes," was conducted by Juan Maldacena (the Carl P. Feinberg Professor of theoretical physics from the Institute of Advanced Study) and Alexey Milekhin, a graduate of astrophysics student at Princeton University. The pair have written extensively on the subject of wormholes in the past and how they could be a means for traveling safely through space.

[...] However, Maldacena and Milekhin emphasize that their study was conducted for the purpose of showing that traversable wormholes can exist as a result of the "subtle interplay between general relativity and quantum physics."

In short, wormholes are not likely to become a practical way to travel through space – at least, not in any way that's foreseeable. Perhaps they would not be beyond a Kardashev[*] Type II or Type III civilization, but that's just speculation. Even so, knowing that a major element in science fiction is not beyond the realm of possibility is certainly encouraging!

Preprint Reference:
Juan Maldacena and Alexey Milekhin, Humanly traversable wormholes, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.06618.pdf

[*] Kardashev Scale


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  • (Score: 1) by dioxide on Monday August 31 2020, @02:43PM (4 children)

    by dioxide (7248) on Monday August 31 2020, @02:43PM (#1044596)

    At what point do you start wondering if they're just making up math to fit their fantasy?
    OTOH, it's my fantasy too, and that'd be pretty damn cool.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 31 2020, @02:53PM (1 child)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday August 31 2020, @02:53PM (#1044599)

    At what point do you create the reality by making up the math?

    I mean, runaway fission thermonuclear reactions happen with or without knowing how to make them happen, but you have to admit: they have happened a lot more frequently on the Earth since it was understood how to make them happen.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday September 01 2020, @08:52AM

      by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Tuesday September 01 2020, @08:52AM (#1044855) Journal

      The problem comes with testing and proving in a real world scenario. We can and have tested thermonuclear reactions, but we can't test the various quantum theories very much.

      As I once heard someone say: a theory of astronomy could be 90% certain, but it's built on another theory which is 90% certain... which is built on another theory which is 90% certain, and so on and so on. At some point, the certainty doesn't quite add up. Dark Matter is very much this. We have no clue what it is and can't run tests on it, but there are all sorts of different conflicting theories running around about it. It's the same with quantum theory.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday August 31 2020, @04:15PM (1 child)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 31 2020, @04:15PM (#1044626) Journal

    At what point do you start wondering if they're just making up math to fit their fantasy?

    Or bending fantasies to fit the math. Calling "microscopic" areas of immense gravity "human-traversable" falls into fantasy, for example, I'd say.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @11:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 31 2020, @11:13PM (#1044741)

      It might not be human traversable, but it would still be extremely useful and revolutionary physics if you can even shove a photon through it.