Wormhole: a Star Gate or a Star Tunnel?

I was writing a sci-fi novel(as a hobby) and when the spaceship was about to enter the wormhole a few questions poped in my mind:

1) Would they automatically cross to the other side, as if going through a portal, or is the wormhole like a tunnel? To me it is more like a tunnel, which generates the next questions.

2) How long does it take to travel through the tunnel?

3) How long can those tunnels be?

4) What do they see while inside the tunnel?

5) What if the tunnel is so long they spend more than an year inside it?

6) What if the wormhole distabilises itself while they are crossing it?

7) What happens if someone decides to leave the ship while crossing the wormhole tunnel?

8) What happens if another spaceship follows them inside the tunnel?

9) Can those spaceships race each other? Fight each other?

Of course, none of those questions would matter if the wormhole traversy is supposed to be like crossing a portal. Instant gratification! So, what do you guys think?

[edit on 20-12-2009 by henriquefd]

1) tunnel

2) there is no time in there..ie. it's instantaneous

3) there is no long, it's infinitely long & short

4) rainbows

5) see 2)

6) then they cease to exist

7) see 6)

8) an infinite # of ships can go through at the same time

9) no

10) interesting thread S/F

Boy, can I kill a thread or what?


OP, thoughts?

reply to post by Signals


Lol. Well, I was waiting more people to give their inputs. Maybe I scared them away with all those questions? Anyway, first of all, thanks for your answers.

Lets discuss those answers by their numbers:

1) agreed.

2) But there is time to those inside the wormhole. The tunnel is a shortcut between two points in the universe, so they will have to cross that tunnel. There is a distance from one mouth to another mouth. I mean, imagine if those two points in space are separated billions of light years away. Who is to say how big that wormhole tunnel will be? It could be a huuuuuuuuuuuuge tunnel.

3) I cant understand that. o_O

4) Rainbows? Hmmm.... Is there LIGHT inside the wormhole?

6) Wouldn't they just end up randomly somewhere else? Isn't the wormhole part of the universe?

7 e 8) Why can the ship be in the wormhole but not a person? If more than one ship can cross a wormhole at the same time, why cant someone from inside the ship leave the ship?

9) I was considering that if they are in a tunnel and if that tunnel has a distance to be crossed and also considering they are not travelling FTL or even at lightspeed, but slowed than that, then their velocity would determine how long it takes for them to cross the distance of the tunnel. And if two spaceships enter the wormhole one could race each other.

Now, wormholes are just theories, of course. Here is why I'm considering the time taken to cross the tunnel of the wormhole:

"Special relativity only applies locally. Wormholes allow superluminal (faster-than-light) travel by ensuring that the speed of light is not exceeded locally at any time. While traveling through a wormhole, subluminal (slower-than-light) speeds are used. If two points are connected by a wormhole, the time taken to traverse it would be less than the time it would take a light beam to make the journey if it took a path through the space outside the wormhole. However, a light beam traveling through the wormhole would always beat the traveler. As an analogy, running around to the opposite side of a mountain at maximum speed may take longer than walking through a tunnel crossing it. A person can walk slowly while reaching his or her destination more quickly because the distance is smaller."(wikipedia.... yeah, I know. Not as good as scanning Einstein´s brain =P)

[edit on 22-12-2009 by henriquefd]

Good points...Back to #4...light enters the blackhole, but can't escape, right? So I guess you'd see pure light?

Here's a movie clip that may have skewed my thoughts, seen in my childhood-


Visions of Hell?

Right...

This needs to be moved to the Keep Your Stories To Yourself Thread.

Some people want to come to this forum to see breaking scientific and technological theories and events. NOT you talking about a book your writing.

Pointless waste of a thread.

reply to post by Signals


If Its more like a tunnel wouldn't you be travelling faster then the speed of light?
If so can light travel faster then the speed of light, and if it does can you see it???

If you look at the Stargate theory (TV SHOW SG-1) They travel through a worm hole between Gates which it like a tunnel but it only takes seconds to travel millions of light years.

Perhaps if in your novel if you are travelling in ships it would take much longer because they are obviously much larger and don't have a fixed point of entry and exit so its not as stable.

I don't know if thats any help or makes sense at all.

Originally posted by FAQAmerica
Right...

This needs to be moved to the Keep Your Stories To Yourself Thread.

Some people want to come to this forum to see breaking scientific and technological theories and events. NOT you talking about a book your writing.

Pointless waste of a thread.

Actually, pointless waste of a post from your part. Did you see me describing my novel here at all? It is not my novel that is being discussed. It's wormhole THEORY. Which is a scientific theory. So, unless you can contribute to the discussion of wormholes, you will be wasting your time and our time with your immature rants. But thanks for the bump!



[edit on 22-12-2009 by henriquefd]

Im really bad when it comes to science, but wouldn't traveling through a wormhole be instantaneous? it's two points in space folded together..i don't think there would literally be a tunnel connecting those two points. It's almost like quantum entanglement in that sense... we don't know if wormholes exist but we have already instantly teleported an atom. Could this be a way to travel large distances in the future? at the very least we send information this way.

Here is a diagram of a wormhole:



As you can see, there is a tunnel connecting both sides. If there is no standard distance between the mouths, you could have short and long tunnels.

Signals, now that I think about it, if the wormhole is traversable and if objects can go through it, light can also travel from one side to the other. So, supposing there is light inside a wormhole and that it takes time to cross the tunnel, what does it look like from the inside? Or is it just a vacuum all the way from one point to the other?

Solomons, if we treat them as in the Stargate series, yes, it is instantaneous. But reading about wormhole theories gives me the impression we are talking about tunnels, not portals.

[edit on 22-12-2009 by henriquefd]

A wormhole is essentially a "tunnel" between two points in the universe, but only in theory. In reality it would probably look more like a hole in reality leading to another point in space. If i remember correctly, you would "create" a wormhole by bending space to such an extent that the starting point and the destination point basically coexists in the same space.

So, as for spaceship wormhole drives, it would probably be more like opening a portal. Going through it would be instant.

However, i do think that opening a wormhole could be achieved in different ways. It would probably depend on the technology being used.

Just think about the paper analogy often used in explaining wormholes. The shortest distance between two points on a piece of paper is a straight line. If you bend the paper, bring the two points together and make a hole through the paper, you've created a shorter distance between the two points. What happens is essentially that you bend a two-dimensional plane through the third dimension until the two points come together in the third dimension, still being separated in the other two dimensions.

So, you could imagine that the wormhole would look different depending on how much you bend the paper. If you bend it enough to bring the points together into the same space, you would have a portal. If the points are still separated a bit, you would have to travel the distance by which they are separated. This does bring up another problem though, you need to create the actual tunnel between the points, and this tunnel would go through the fourth dimension (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong). That could possibly require a bunch of extra technology.

As for what you'd see when travelling through a wormhole, it would seem logical that the only light entering would be through the mouths. If the wormhole is a portal, looking at it you would probably see directly what's on the other side, however it would probably be distorted due to the geometry of space in and around the wormhole (look up gravitational lensing). If it's a tunnel, it would probably look like going through a dark cave, only seeing the light from the openings.

Let's see if i can answer some of your other questions while I'm at it..

The time taken to traverse the wormhole would of course depend on what type of wormhole it is; if it's a tunnel it would depend on how long it is (which in turn depends on the type of technology used to create it, or how powerful it is), and if it's a portal it would of course be instant.

The distance you could travel by using a wormhole would of course be related to how powerful the drive is.

If you spend a lot of time inside the wormhole, I don't think it would affect you in any particular way as you're not traveling faster than light locally.

If the wormhole destabilizes while you're in it, you'd simply be torn apart and get spat out. Which also means that it's not such a good idea to leave the ship while it's in the wormhole, if you don't have a way to get out before the ship does, you'll die.

Another ship might be able to enter the wormhole if it's a tunnel, and then pretty much any interaction would be possible between the two ships, as long as the tunnel is wide enough (I guess).

I hope that answers your questions.

Edit: Don't take my word for 100% truth. I'm not a wormhole physicist, but i know a bit about wormholes.

[edit on 22-12-2009 by Deran]