Talk:Wormhole/Archive 1

Archive 1

Wormholes but not physics

These pages consist of about 0.1% physics (the Schwartschild wormhole) and 99.9% fantasy fiction. The completely imaginary wormholes of TV space operas need to be clearly distinguished from the nonphysical solutions to classical gravitational field equations that are actually part of physics.

Further, the physics, as it is presented, is not even necessarily correct on the page. For example, the argument that wormholes do not allow faster than light travel is flawed, as it does place you in another part of the universe at a distance that is forbidden based on the time it took by a world line. Such possibilities do create causal impossibilities according to special relativity. Further, wormholes are not two dimentional circles, as they would be if we lived in a 2D universe, but rather, to extend the analogy illustrated in the first image, it would have to be a sphere connecting two space-time points by a fifth dimention (past the three space dimentions and the time dimention). I'm not saying that I know all of the physics behind a wormhole, but I am saying that none of the people who wrote this page (with the exception of the topology material) know it either. I would prefer for someone with actual knowledge of the physics behind it (i.e. have taken a general relativity course in college or preferably grad school) to come and fix the page.

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In Argument: Not necessarily, the wormhole is a portion of Theoretical Physics which is at this present time being researched and studied. As you say this article does contain mostly fiction, but most of what is here complies with the theoretical physics. While the wormholes of all TV shows and operas are in fact fictional, that is not to say that the "wormhole" is 99.9% fiction and .1% truth. Also for some of those shows which you speak of (e.g. Stargate SG-1) they have done a considerable amount of research surrounding the Subject of Theoretical Physics, and from this chose the mode of Space Travel which was most practical. THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT WHAT YOU SEE ON STARGATE SG-1 IS REAL, This is only to say that they did a considerable amount of research into this before going around making things up (obviously there is most likely no 'Orie' and/or 'Jafaah' in the Universe). I do however agree with you in the fact that they should probably be separated and clearly labeled as FICTIONAL if they have not been proved or refuted. Please let me know what you think of my counter argument at lespaulYX@yahoo.com. Thanks

• Well the section is labeled "wormholes in fiction" - though it might not have been when you posted the comments - which should be enough to make the reader realize that they shouldn't take what it say as the way nature works (in case the Fi part of Sci-Fi wasn't enough). At this point the fiction section takes up about as much space as the science section, so maybe it's time to split it off. Koweja 03:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

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In argument to the argument: The research done on television shows is incomplete at best, and representing it as fact in any way is misleading. The research done on most shows (including stargate) is just into jargon in order to make it sound imposing. There is no reason to believe that anything presented is based in reality.

I have a hard time understanding much of the page. It seems like Causation is being violated. Monkeymonday (talk) 19:53, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Wormhole as an IT term

Wormhole also refers, by analogy, to IT applications in network concentrators for example. Data or data packets enter the concentrator and to prevent blocking and data loss the packets (with header bits) can move transversally through the columns as well as along the lines. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.175.67.195 (talk • contribs) on 08:12, 20 May 2004

I think you are refering to the tunneling protocol,but the picture you are appling so it seems to me is not quite correct since the way between the ends of the tunnel is in essential longer than the direct way, it just avoids the analysis of the packages it is transporting. It is less like a wormhole and more like laying a gas pipe through a sewer. - (84.57.78.23 15:16, 24 February 2007 (UTC))

Additional physicist

I see Einstein and Rosen mentioned, but wasn't there a third guy? Podolsky, or something? Or was that a separate but related conjencture? Amayzes 06:13, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)

You're thinking of the EPR Paradox. --khaosworks 06:26, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Added some more info

I have expanded the article a bit. Although there are many different kinds, the empasis is still on traversable wormholes. It would be great of someone could cover the other types. MadIce 14:21, 8 May 2005 (UTC) Yes there was a scientist named Podalski "Anon"

Various fixes

Could somebody look at this and please make sure I've retained its meaning? It wasn't very clear to begin with:

== Traversable wormholes ==

Lorentzian traversable wormholes would allow travel to one part of the universe very quickly as well as from one universe to another. Because wormholes not only connect spatial locations they would also allow time travel.

Jayc 03:13, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

Attempt to explain the idea a bit better

I've tried to explain the idea a bit better. It doesn't "sound well", but it should get the point across.

== Traversable wormholes ==

Lorentzian traversable wormholes would allow travel from one part of the universe to another part of that same universe very quickly or would allow travel from one universe to another universe. Because wormholes not only connect spatial locations they would also allow time travel. MadIce 00:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

worm hole r only way to travel from one universe to another in no time this might hold the key of alien invasion and allthe bloody stuff the are now dayd aired on various channels —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.169.13.71 (talk) 05:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Merger with 'wormhole metrics'

Sounds like a good idea. ---Mpatel (talk) 17:36, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

The light cone

Don't wormholes contradict the light cone on the Lightspeed page? Since a wormhole would allow you to go to a point outside the cone anyway --213.118.112.4 15:37, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

You would have travel a distance within the light cone to a location that only appears to be out of the light cone. If you were to draw the cone so it also moves through the wormhole you would see it is within reach of the light cone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.213.78.130 (talk • contribs) on 19:34, 24 May 2006.

treading on sacred ground and request a link

It is my contention that Traversable Wormholes exist on earth and that strange creatures, perhaps made of exotic matter or anti-matter, such as large unkown hairy humanoids and some lake monsters, are able to utilize them for passage to other universes (dimensions). Wormholes then are not just exotic theory, but have a practical basis and use. I assure you this is not a joke. Please add this link in external links, request to the page founder, :

http://www.beckjord.com/wormholesinuse

FWIW, it is my theory that humans who engage in the out of body experience, OOBE, may in fact be going through a workhole to another universe and then back. The sam may apply to certain realistic dreams,and the "dreams" may be a record of an actual mental voyage.

Thanks,

beckjordBeckjord 08:13, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Non-sense.Anti-matter would react very fast with atmosphere,radiating photons when it annihilated. What you are trying to add is speculation about supernatural portals which could connect us to somewhere else.OOBE was never a physical phenomenon(as claimed by practitioners),its getting your ghost out of the shell.OOBE could be explained by virtual projection in the brain(as some scientists claim,its like a doppleganger effect).

Confused terminology

I'm curing two problems with terminology in this article. First, the terms 'wormhole' and Einstein-Rosen bridge are not synonymous in ordinary usage. The ER bridge is the Schwarzschild wormhole, but not all wormholes are of this type. Second, the ER bridge received its name from the 1935 paper by A. Einstein and N. Rosen, "The particle problem in the general theory of relativity", Phys. Rev. 48, 73-77 (1935). This has nothing to do with Podolsky or the EPR paper, and ER bridges are never, in my experience, referred to as EPR bridges. Physicist 19:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Merge from Alice Universe

Alice universe should be merged into this page or deleted. It is not notable enough to have its own page.

I disagree. If we can have entries for, say, pokemon characters, then we can certainly have an entry for Alice universes. Think of Alice universes as fancruft for physicists. Physicist 23:09, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

That is a non sequitur. Notable pokemon characters are more notable than Alice Universe. Non-notable pokemon characters should not have their own page.. can you name one? Zargulon 03:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not a non sequitur. Your second sentence indicates that you are disagreeing with one of my premises, not with my mode of reasoning. And no, I can't name any pokemon characters: none of them is notable. Physicist 15:04, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

"If we can have entries for, say, pokemon characters, then we can certainly have an entry for Alice universes" is a classic non sequitur. I also happen to disagree with your premise that no pokemon characters are notable (although they don't interest me personally), and I strongly disagree with your implication that pokemon characters' non-notability follows from the fact that you can't name any! I can't think of any reasonable definition of notability which sets Pikachu as less notable than Alice Universe. If you can, please don't hesitate to share it. Zargulon 15:14, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

It's not a non sequitur, classic or otherwise. You are refusing to recognize all of the premises which I implied (or tried to imply) with my statement. I'm not sure whether you really found my remarks confusing because you were unable to infer my premises, or whether you are simply feigning stupidity for the sake of argument. In any event, this argument doesn't further our efforts to improve Wikipedia. Let's focus on that. Notable means "worthy of notice; remarkable; memorable; noted or distinguished", according to the Wictionary. Alice universes appear to me to be "worthy of notice" because they arise naturally as soon as one begins thinking about field theories in curved spacetimes; in a sense, you can't help noticing them. On the other hand, pokemon seems to me to be some element of popular culture; as such, I don't see why it's worthy of notice. However, I'm willing to accept that perhaps it is. I didn't mean to imply "that pokemon characters' non-notability follows from the fact that [I] can't name any"; that was an incorrect inference. Physicist 17:00, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I accept that you did not consciously make a non sequitur, and that you believed you somehow implied premises which in turn gave integrity to your opening statement. I also promise that any actual stupidity on my part is completely natural and unfeigned. I accept your definition of notability, but like most wikipedians I acknowledge degrees of notability, and I totally stand by my opinion that, due to their degrees of notability, Pikachu should have its own article whereas Alice Universe should not. That doesn't mean I think that Alice Universe is so non-notable that it should not be mentioned in wikipedia at all, nor have I suggested that. I didn't understand your sentence "pokemon seems to me to be some element of popular culture; as such, I don't see why it's worthy of notice".. was that a) just an opinion (which is fine), b) an argument which is alleged to follow from our definition of "notable" (if so, it appears to me like a non sequitur) or c) an argument which follows from other implied premises (in which case, what are they?) Zargulon 18:53, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Changing merge to Non-orientable wormhole. Zargulon 16:40, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Citation of this page

Just letting contributors to this article know that a page on the BBC website here about their new documentary series Time links to this page as an explanation of wormholes. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:46, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Explain wormhole metrics

I was wondering if it would be a good idea for someone to explain the formulae under the heading Wormhole Metrics. I dont understand it and was wanting to. I was thinking that other people may be thinking the same thing. Stwalkerster 21:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

This is (in principle) explained in Kruskal-Szekeres coordinates, but the present state of this article is not very illuminating. Alain Riazuelo 23:18, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Why...

Can someone explain why Michio Kaku is not mentioned ? His site is www.mkaku.org and it has a LOT of material concerning wormholes. Martial Law 21:19, 13 April 2006 (UTC) :)

His field of expertise seems to be string theory. He's talked about wormholes in popular-science type presentations, but he's also talked about many other things. --Christopher Thomas 19:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Split the Sci and the Fi?

Right the Wormholes in Fiction section is about the same size as the entire rest of the article. Would anybody object to me creating a separate Wormholes in Fiction page and moving that part of the page over? It would also make it easier to organize and clean up the information. Koweja 03:34, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

This sounds reasonable, though a more MoS-compliant title would just be Wormholes in fiction (capitals only at the front or for proper nouns). I'd also suggest keeping a bulleted list of a few noteworthy examples in the main article, with a caveat in comments that new entries should be added to the fiction article]]. --Christopher Thomas 03:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Dubious

Regarding the 2D-diagram and the line in the intro "Spacetime can be viewed as a 2D surface". As I understand it, this is meant as an analogy: Just like a 2-dimensional spacetime allows for wormholes if it is embedded in a 3-dimensional space, a 3- or n-dimensional spacetime allows for wormholes if it is embedded in a 4- or (n+1)-dimensional space. Spacetimes with more than the 3 dimensions we are used to are actually common; M-theory uses 11 dimensions to model the physics in our universe which we are thinking of as 3-dimensional. Please rename this section once the "dubious" marker has been resolved.Highlander (talk) 19:44, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Concerning the THROAT

This is something about that i read in a book called LIFE AFTER DEATH by MARY T BROWNE. Well she talk about the soul of the person after dying seems to be travelling through a tunnel of some sort. At the end of the tunnel live the sould of the people. Well i was just wondering, could this be another type place in the universe where the souls may be living? And if yes, then there's a worm hole connectin the earth to that place?

This question is well beyond the realm of scientific fact. --Fastfission 23:42, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

i agree with fastfission. WAAAAAAY to controversial. 68.55.102.17 (talk) 00:15, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

recent edit explanation

The Scwharzschild wormhole isn't traversible, but the event horizon of a black hole is not necessarily a barrier to a black hole /white hole sort of wormhole. Just as one must always fall into a black hole, one must always fall out of a black hole. Thus one would not get "trapped in the middle" as the article stated. Pervect 23:43, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you sure this is correct? One of the external links[1] had a qualitative overview of the problem (as far as I can figure out, it only looks like a white hole/black hole pair at one instant in time, and ends up looking like a pair of black holes or a pair of white holes at other times). My math isn't good enough to check the claims directly. --Christopher Thomas 20:15, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

For what I actually wrote in the main article, see for instance http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0505108 page 4. Thorne was aware of the Einstein-Rosen bridge, and it's non-traversibility. After being contacted by Sagan, Thorne realized that exotic matter could be used to hold open the throat of a Schwarzschild wormhole and make it traversable.

Most wormholes actually don't have event horizons. Looking at the metric in the above URL, it appears that Thorne's metric doesn't have an event horizon. I don't see any logical impossibility in having a "one-way" wormhole with an event horizon, and someone told me once that such wormholes existed and were discussed in Visser's "Lorentzian wormholes". Unfortunately I don't have this particular book so I'm relying on hearsay and logic. This probably wouldn't be good enough to put in the main article, but I see that my claims in the main article were a little more modest.

I don't think there's a real major discrepancy with what I read in Hamilton's url, which is I assume your reference. He points out that there would be some unpleasant thermodynamic consequences to white holes. I agree that they would be unpleasant, but I wouldn't agree that this makes them logically impossible.

A more important practical issue is that the geometry caused by a gravitational collapse wouldn't actually be a Schwarzschild black hole. It would be a BKL singularity. The Schwarzschild geometry isn't stable in the interior region of a black hole formed by gravitational collapse. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pervect (talk • contribs) on 23:48, 27 August 2006.

Scroll down to the section titled "impossible to pass through the wormhole", for the commentary. I'm not convinced the page is accurate - as I see where the "one-way" model comes from, and don't see a qualitative reason for it to be wrong - but I'd certainly hope that the reference page checked the math. I agree that the wormholes end up being non-traversible for other reasons (pinching off instantly and not forming from stellar collapses), but the statement that such a wormhole _could_ be traversible if stabilization occurs inside the horizon should still be verified. I've taken a careful look at the reference you cite above, and it doesn't seem to address this concern (instead it just carefully constructs the geometries involved).

I agree that it should be possible to use exotic matter to stabilize a wormhole in such a way as to not have a horizon forming at all (by putting the shell of exotic matter outside the Schwarzschild radius), but that's a different issue. --Christopher Thomas 01:08, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree now that that's what your reference says. Thus in some sense it's "fair game" for citation. However, I don't think that the explanation makes any sense. A particle transversing the wormhole experiences no singularity, yet the article would have us believe that the worldline of a traversing particle, with the "arrow of time" drawn in, looks like this ----><-----, two one-way roads meeting at a common point. This topology just doesn't make any sense. There is nothing like a singularity to make any one point "special" such that it should be the points where the worldlines collide. Worldlines suddenly stopping for no reason don't make any sense either. It makes much more sense to me to assume that the manifold isn't time-orientable. Not all manifolds allow a consistent assignment of the direction of time. To quote Wald "Thus non-time orientable spacetimes have the physically pathological property that we cannot consistently distinguish between the notions of going "forward in time" as opposed to "backward in time". While I have references that say that non-time orientable manifolds exist in GR, I don't have a reference to say specifically that the manifold under discussion is an example of such. We don't even have a metric at this point. Of course the reference doesn't offer us a proof that the manifold in question is time orientable either. Pervect 05:32, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The reference you cited proves metrics. It should be possible to tune the Morris-Thorne wormhole metric, which represents the case of a wormhole stabilized with exotic matter, to an arbitrary throat radius (greater than and less than the Schwarzschild radius). I don't have the math to trace timelike geodesics in the resulting system, but we could always ping User:Linas, User:Salsb, or one of the other GR types at WikiProject Physics to sanity-check it for us (or you could check it, as you seem to be reasonably familiar with the subject). If the statements on the web page are demonstrably incorrect, I'm more than happy to keep the statements as you've laid them out even without an external citation. I actually think you're probably right; I'm just hesitant to endorse the change as long as the conflict with a reference exists. --Christopher Thomas 06:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm going back to zero level indent for my convenience...

The note after reference 12 comes close to giving us a metric, but unfortunately the potential function $\Phi$ isn't defined in terms of coordinates. My first impulse is to trace out the null radial geodesics via

$e^{2\Phi }dt^{2}={\frac {dr^{2}}{1-{\frac {{b_{0}}^{2}}{r^{2}}}}}$

I would guess b₀ is a constant, but I'm pretty sure $\Phi$ is a function.

Possibly, we might be able to work with just what we've got, though. The term on the left hand side will always be positive. So will the term on the right hand side if |r|<b₀. When r=b₀, we have an event horizon, light never reaches r=b₀ in a finte amount of coordinate time. If we imagine light coming in one horizon, it must either "bounce" somewhere (for instance at r=0) and since it reverses direction, leave through the same horizon it entered by (impossible), or else it must continue on, and leave through the opposite horizon. There's no way for it to 'get stuck' that makes sense mathematically that I can see, i.e. one that satisfies the above equation. The equation was dervied just by setting the Lorentz interval to zero for a null geodesic. Pervect 07:22, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me (hopefully) clarify a few things. A change to conformal time t_c should allow us to write the metric as

$ds^{2}={\frac {1}{1-{\frac {{b_{0}}^{2}}{r^{2}}}}}(dr^{2}-dt_{c}^{2})$

where

$dt_{c}=e^{-\Phi }{\sqrt {\frac {1}{1-{\frac {{b_{0}}^{2}}{r^{2}}}}}}dt$

This makes the path of light "straight", as dr=dt_c when we switch to conformal time.

Insisting that the second derivative always remains continuous leads to the argument that dr/dt should never change sign. However, due to the nature of our coordinate system, we expect that dr/dt will change sign when the particle passes through the origin even if it has a flat metric. Consider a radial photon in flat space. As it approaches the origin dr/dt < 0. At the origin dr/dt > 0. The second derivative is undefined at the origin. So we expect dr/dt to change sign at the origin.

If we assume for the sake of seeing what happens the photon never changes sign for dr/dt, even at the origin, it gets "reflected" back on its outgoing path. This is obviously wrong. So we expect the particle to change the sign of dr/dt at the origin, and nowhere else. This leads to the behavior I described, where the photon comes in from one event horizon and leaves through the other. The key points are that conformal time monotonically increases with coordinate time (in the region |r| < b₀, dt>0 implies dt_c > 0 ) and that the path of light is straight in conformal time. We can make both of these staments without knowing the details of $\Phi$ because $e^{\Phi }$ is always positive. Pervect 20:24, 29 August 2006 (UTC) Pervect 21:48, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

This is sounding reasonable. The only thing that gives me pause is that it should be possible to define a coordinate system on the Morris-Thorne wormhole that doesn't have the photon reach r = 0, as the throat has nonzero radius. The author of the web page about wormholes has accepted corrections to the page in the past; perhaps ping him about this thread? --Christopher Thomas 01:30, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I was going to suggest doing the analysis on the traversable wormhole on the webpage, but there isn't much point as it doesn't have a horzion. But the procedure to do it on the incomplete metric is the same. Basically because none of the metric coefficients is a function of $\phi \,$, assuming that $\Phi \,$ isn't a function of $\phi \,$ which I believe is correct, $E_{\phi }\,$ should be constant. This means that for $\theta =\pi /2\,$, $r^{2}{\frac {d\phi }{d\tau }}$ should be constant, where $\tau \,$ is proper time. Solving this together with the Lorentz interval being zero should give us the the needed two equations for finding a non-radial null geodesic.

I think that you make a reasonable suggestion in dropping the author of the webpage a note. I'll do so. Pervect 02:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Expand fiction bit

there are several missing references to fiction, i cant name all of them [or anymore] but dr. who is one of them :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SleweD (talk • contribs) 22:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC).

Amos Ori's time travel example

In the Theoretical basis section, an example by Amos Ori is refered to. However, as far as I can see, this is not a wormhold. He outlines a time machine that is a torical region of space, but where the space itself is topologically trivial: i.e. no tunnel. Or am I mistaken here? If I'm right, this reference should be thrown out: although it's a nice example, it does not sort under wormholes. (I'm quite new here, as well as out of my subject, so I have not edited the Wormhole page...yet.) --Septagon 23:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

PLEASE FIX the caption on the second image says "bullshit". I don't know where else to point it, and I do not know what it should say.

Shorten fiction section

Since there's a separate article on wormholes in fiction, I think it is worth taking the text here and moving most of it to that page, making the text on wormholes in fiction here just a brief summary. So I just moved some stuff (mostly the wormholes in games) over to that page, and removed it from here, and did a small amount of moving some other stuff that wasn't on that page. I also went through and edited down the wormholes in fiction section here quite a bit (note that no text was actually deleted; all of the text I cut was moved to the wormholes in fiction article). Geoffrey.landis 04:54, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Stargate

I've already heard Samantha Carter talking about the physics of a wormhole and the Stargate. Go watch it now, or some time in the near future.

Can I just say, Wormholes are based on the principle that everything is 2D and curves around itself, so i guess Stargate can never be true =-(. —Preceding unsigned comment added by MVG1234 (talk • contribs) 23:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

mindfuck

"A wormhole could allow time travel. This could be accomplished by accelerating one end of the wormhole to a high velocity relative to the other, and then sometime later bringing it back; relativistic time dilation would result in the accelerated wormhole mouth aging less than the stationary one as seen by an external observer, similar to what is seen in the twin paradox. However, time connects differently through the wormhole than outside it, so that synchronized clocks at each mouth will remain synchronized to someone traveling through the wormhole itself, no matter how the mouths move around. This means that anything which entered the accelerated wormhole mouth would exit the stationary one at a point in time prior to its entry. For example, if clocks at both mouths both showed the date as 2000 before one mouth was accelerated, and after being taken on a trip at relativistic velocities the accelerated mouth was brought back to the same region as the stationary mouth with the accelerated mouth's clock reading 2005 while the stationary mouth's clock read 2010, then a traveler who entered the accelerated mouth at this moment would exit the stationary mouth when its clock also read 2005, in the same region but now five years in the past. Such a configuration of wormholes would allow for a particle's world line to form a closed loop in spacetime, known as a closed timelike curve."

WHAT? Jesus christ, rape my mind a little more thoroughly next time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.168.71.168 (talk) 17:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

If you were willing to take the time to read the references supplied then I am sure you don't simply want to label them as "mindfuck" (whatever that is). By deleting that section all that is left are theories that are just as falsifiable as the ones that stayed in the article. By deleting the information relevant peer viewed articles are simply ignored, because someone didn't read them. I call that vandalism. MadIce (talk) 08:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I realize that its "theoritically" possible

But really, has anyone even tried constructing one?NoMatterHowMuchYouTrustThem,PeopleEventuallyLetYouDown (talk) 03:22, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Definition

Excuse me, how a region can be compact if its topology is R x Σ? I suggest that the definition be replaced by a more usual one: "A wormhole is a spacetime with two asymptotically flat regions"--Seador (talk) 16:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know enough about topology to understand this, but if you feel your phrasing is more accurate, you should change the article. If anyone objects, they'll let you know, or at worst, just change it back. Foobaz·o< 00:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The definition as it stands is also totally incomprehensible to the general reader.--76.93.42.50 (talk) 00:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

image suggestion

(explaination and movies at Flight through a wormhole). I'm the author, so I don't want to add it myself. Corvin --80.152.0.7 (talk) 15:37, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Cool! I've added a link. I don't know if you intended to suggest adding an actual still image to the article. Could you clarify the licensing situation? The wikimedia commons page states that the still image is CC-BY-SA licensed, but the web page for the video says that it's just an ordinary copyright...? Did all the other copyright holders agree to the CC-BY-SA for the still image?--76.93.42.50 (talk) 00:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

the still image above is CC-BY-SA and could be included in the article. We have a special page for free images: gallery, where the licence is published. (Most of the other images there are already uploaded to Commons, see de:Benutzer:CorvinZahn/Bilder). Corvin, --80.152.0.117 (talk) 13:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I wish there was a version of the movie without the brightly colored lines. It's cool seeing the geometry, but it makes it look hokey. Foobaz·o< 15:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Here is a true picture of a wormhole : http://www.logosoftwear.com/cgi-images/CH0237.JPG82.217.143.153 (talk) 19:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Travel time through a wormhole

Are there any guesses as to how long it would take to travel from one mouth of a wormhole to the other? Would it necessarily be instantaneous? Are the equations for that too uncertain? Thanks. 69.212.57.119 (talk) 02:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)NotWillDecker

How do you get negative mass in past an event horizon?

If negative mass is repelled by gravity, how can you push it into a wormhole? (Though I just saw someone on one of those "The Universe" episodes talking about lowering someone through a wormhole on a cable and pulling him back... is there some kind of wormhole that has no event horizon? I thought that the tubular part of the wormhole had to be past an event horizon, though) Wnt (talk) 22:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

In Fiction

Stargate is mentioned twice under the in-fiction heading. The first mention seems appropriate and within the context of other science-fiction franchises mentioned under this heading while the second mention, an independent and displaced paragraph, appears several lines later depicting Stargate canon.

I'm not comfortable with removing content from this or any other page as I'm new to the whole wikipedia-participation thing. Could someone review this heading and edit appropriately? 192.155.58.232 (talk) 22:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

"The central theme in the movie Donnie Darko revolves around Einstein-Rosen bridges." It is? Says who, where? 213.114.237.104 (talk) 16:05, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello. "A Wrinkle in Time" is about (people traveling through) wormholes. 888Xristos (talk) 15:32, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Who did say "wormhole"

The term wormhole was coined by the American theoretical physicist Nicholas Ryan Ballard in 1957. - says current version
The term wormhole was coined by the American theoretical physicist John Wheeler in 1957. - before edit by 65.26.89.151 at 07:51, 11 February 2009
Is it true or what? Google knows nothing about physicist Nicholas Ryan Ballard. So, vandalism? Can somebody reassure me or correct it please...

I believe "John Wheeler" is correct, although it is hard to tell with all people using wikipedia as reference. Maybe "Nicholas Ryan Ballard" is a name inspired by the series Stargate SG1.Highlander (talk) 23:49, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Im pretty sure it's John Wheeler, but Im not an expert on this. - Aurora (talk) 18:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I have a few questions, if anyone could answer...?

Does anyone know if gravity is affected, or at all exists in a wormhole?

Does a Wormhole suck you in, or can you traverse normally in it?

How do you choose your destination?

What would happen if you were to exit at the throat of the wormhole?

Would our physical selfs reach the end before our projected images?

And Does time reverse when you go backwards through the wormhole? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.56.243.62 (talk) 22:54, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Has any one seen worm hole? Or it is just in theories? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.215.180.122 (talk) 11:44, 20 July 2010 (UTC) user : spartiator —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.215.221.216 (talk) 11:50, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The answers

Does anyone know if gravity is affected, or at all exists in a wormhole? it exists.

Does a Wormhole suck you in, or can you traverse normally in it? yes, it would suck you in. A Wormhole is essentially a black hole and a white hole (or two black holes - the arguments here abound) connected together. Individually, the black hole remains a black hole and will suck you in. However, sucking only occurs at a very small distance from the event horizon (3x the Schwartzchild radius, which is again 3x the mass of the black hole in proportion to our Sun. For example, if a black hole had 3x the mass of our sun, its Schwartzchild radius would be 3km, and the sucking radius, 9km. That is very small.

How do you choose your destination? It is simply where the mouth of the white hole is placed in spacetime.

What would happen if you were to exit at the throat of the wormhole? you can't, not even in theory. there does not exist any spacetime in the region immediately outside of the throat. you will always travel onward to the other end (or be stuck in the middle, either way does not make you exit the throat)

Would our physical selfs reach the end before our projected images? You don't project images.

And Does time reverse when you go backwards through the wormhole? It doesn't quite work that way. Read the section on time travel for a better understanding.

Overmage (talk) 05:59, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.184.11.15 (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Since "a wormhole is essentially a black hole", wouldn't traveling actually be IMPOSSIBLE?!?! I'm thinking of a video "Death by Black Hole", which describes how the extreme variation in gravity between your head and feet would cause your body to rip into a million pieces... 888Xristos (talk) 15:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Other takes on Wormhole time travel?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0916_050916_timetravel.html This and other articles say that you could speed up one mouth of the wormhole, enter the stationary mouth, and travel backward through time. The wiki article says the opposite. Is National Geographic just wrong? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.134.109.126 (talk) 06:50, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The article doesn't say the opposite - it says exactly this, in the "time travel" subsection. What specific parts of the article are you referring to? --Christopher Thomas (talk) 16:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Introductory analogy

As I understand it, the intro section describing a folded 2-D space is merely by way of analogy, to explain the principle, and the current description is completely misleading, stating that spacetime is a 2-D surface. Is it, really? And not the 4-D one I've been living in all these years? Perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps they mean the 2-D surface created by the intersections of the 'time' v 'distance' "dimensions"... or something too abstract for me to even grasp. But I don't think so. Hence, I'll rewrite the opening a bit, and assume that if I've screwed it up, somebody can change it back, or better yet, improve it. I realize Im not explaining exactly what I'm going to do, as the edit I make will be the superior exemplar. Eaglizard (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Does the possibility of a wormhole have an effect on the conservation of energy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.124.110.180 (talk) 14:07, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Dissolving

Wouldn't we be going so fast that we would dissolve before we got to the end? - Aurora (talk) 18:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Gravitational redshifting in wormhole renderings?

One thing that bothers me about this image is that surely there would be a lot of gravitational redshifting going on that is not being rendered (though I am not an expert on wormhole metrics, so I may be wrong here). If so, the image strikes me as being misleading. Icalanise (talk) 22:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

That close to the wormhole, I'd actually expect a lot of blue shifting (of both the scene through the wormhole, and the scene in the background), as you're very deep into the gravitational potential well. Light that you emit will look red-shifted to observers far from the hole. Light that passes through the hole is blue-shifted on the way in and red-shifted on the way out, so distant observers wouldn't see anything unusual.

That said, there are workarounds. If the hypothetical picture was taken by a distant observer with a telephoto lens, it looks about right. If the wormhole has enough exotic matter stabilizing it to have a zero or very small net mass, then it wouldn't produce much blue- or red-shifting at all (though it also shouldn't produce as much visible distortion, as light passing near it wouldn't have its path gravitationally bent).

Long story short, by all means add a rider about the rendering not showing all effects and making some assumptions, but I wouldn't worry too much about it (it's accurate enough for our purposes, given that nobody's actually built a wormhole). --Christopher Thomas (talk) 00:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Wormholes and naming: apples vs books

I think the origin of "wormhole" is probably more to do with bookworms than apple-worms (although I know that people like using apples as examples as a Newton in-joke, eg the cover of MTW's "Gravitation"). The "distance between opposing the pages of a book, when the pages are pressed together" analogy crops up in at least one ancient sci-fi short story, probably an HG Wells jobby.

I also liked the alternative name that appeared in an episode of Sliders, where they arrive in a parallel universe where these things are instead referred to as "mouseholes". — Preceding unsigned comment added by ErkDemon (talk • contribs) on 00:31, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

Fixed Valdalism

I just fixed whatever vandalism that was, even if it was kinda funny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.68.81.58 (talk) on 00:44, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

different directions

Could a wormhole split into different "paths"? --Aurora (talk) 19:57, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

in my humble opinion i think that it is possible but then you would have like a 3 or 4 way wormhole. or even it could be that the different paths would lead to different frames or paths in time. this could be interesting to look into the possibilities Kenneth Edward smith (talk) 02:56, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

definition of universe

the article states that a wormhole would allow travel from one universe to another universe. but, since there is only one universe, how is that possible? i was under the impression that we live in "the universe" not "a universe". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.241.143.189 (talk) 00:14, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

My impression (I'm not a physicist, nor even an especially educated layperson) is that a universe is a continuous extent of spacetime, and that we have no way of knowing how many of those there may be. Possibly only one, possibly a finite number, possibly an infinite number. That being said, it seems to me that if two extents of spacetime were connected by a wormhole they'd actually constitute a single universe, by definition. 65.213.77.129 (talk) 18:45, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Many theories state that there are multiple, if not and infinte amount of universes (see paralell universe), each different in their own way, I believe it is M theory that helps explain this, and I agree, if two universes are connected by a wormhole, then I would think that they then become the same universe since they are connected by space. Blah42b10 (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

i would disagree that they become one universe, because wormholes of themselves exist only for a finite amount of time and so they could not become one, especially not for a finite amount of time, without massive sub-space and gross-space alterations which could lead to universal collapse Kenneth Edward smith (talk) 03:00, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

2D diagram doesn't match up with 3D reality

I don't understand the diagram, it shows a 2D space, but how does that apply to 3D space? And if a wormhole is flat, with the 'mouth' on one face, then what is one the opposite face? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.99.92.249 (talk) on 20:13, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

the reason many advanced theory diagrams are shown in 2D is because it is easier to visualize that way Kenneth Edward smith (talk) 03:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

As bad as it gets...

Seriously? This is supposed to be read by the general public? Time for a total rewrite.

Richmondian (talk) 00:19, 20 May 2011 (UTC)

Question

This probably is the wrong place to ask, but I didn't know where else to. Would a wormhole exert of gravitational pull, and if so how strong would it be? Toothless99 talk to me (View my Contributions) 13:45, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

a wormhole is 2 blackholes?

I was so confused when I read this statement in the article. If a wormhole has a blackhole at each end, how can one time travel? It doesnt makes sense. I would think that one end of the wormhole is a blackhole while the other is a white hole. Things enter at one end (blackhole) and exit through the other end (white hole). This makes more sense in terms of the time travelling theory but I know i'm wrong, some other sceintist probably declined htis theory due to some reason. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rimsha 1994 (talk • contribs) 02:04, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

you make a good point that it should be black on one end and white on the other. but the question is would it take two blackholes to warp spacetime enough to create a wormhole or does a white hole warp spacetime sufficiently to replace a black hole? Kenneth Edward smith (talk) 19:34, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

This is completely incorrect. White holes have no basis in theoretical pysics. Additionally, a black hole is simply an object that collapsed in upon itself, focusing all of its mass at one point, giving it 1. an infinite density and 2. an event horizan, the point at which even light can not escape the gravitational pull of the mass. An object pulled into a black hole is not transported somewhere else, but is simply crushed, and its mass is added to the black hole. This section of the article should be changed as soon as possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Obolisk0430 (talk • contribs) 15:51, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Well for help my article I just referenced, in another section, talks about wormholes involving black holes and why that somewhat impossible.Physics16 (talk) 16:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Wormholes, Teaching, and Negative Energy (help add a new source)

Hey guys, I was reading the exotic mass article, I found their reference. This was disturbing not because most physics law say there is not such thing as negative mass, but more because there have been several papers to talk about how the actual property required for exotic matter to make a wormhole is negative energy density or simply negative energy not negative mass. I was glad; however, to see that the wormhole article used negative energy density instead of calling it negative mass. Therefore to help protect this understanding of negative energy and wormholes, I would like to reference an article about the subject that at least one year came before Dr. Kip Thorne paper on wormholes and negative energy. --Physics16 (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC) The article is called, “Wormholes in spacetime and their use for interstellar travel: A tool for teaching general relativity,” by Morris and Thorne, American Journal of Physics, volume 56, page 5, 1987. For verification purposes temporary link to the article can be found here. As you may read for yourself, the article talks about how the tension of a substance made of exotic matter must be τ0 > ρ0/c^2, where p0 is in fact an energy density term. While this density is postive and the tension is larger than the forces balancing in the center of a neutron star, the article goes on to state how if in the right frame of reference sufficiently far away from the wormhole, energy density turns out to be negative. I have added a sentence about how wormholes where orginally used as a great teaching tool for physics as this article states. I would like to reference this point and add a reference to point about negative energy density; however, I need help referencing the article because I am not sure how to in wikipedia's code or standards. Could someone more experience with editing on wikipedia help? --Physics16 (talk) 16:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I undid the undone by Schaffter because I am very new to wikipedia, and I want him to explain what was wrong with my revision (Besides the obvious lack of the preposition "a"). I think include this point about the edcuational signficance is essesential. If you compare the Kip Thorne's article I refered to above to second reference you will realize that Dr. Thorne's educational wormhole article was written and recieved a complete year before Dr. Thorne's article on time travel; however, they are both published at the same time. This is very odd and the only reason I know of that delay in article happening is when the author is trying to fully explain his opinion on a subject and cannot do it in one paper. Personally I don't think the idea wormholes being a great educational example to understand General Relativity is a minority point of view. Even if it is a minority opinion though, it is a very significant opinion held by already prominent source on wormholes. In fact, I feel like we are not full presenting neutrally Kip Thorne's point of view on wormholes but instead favoring Steven Hawking opinion that wormholes are a form of time travel using stuff like negative energy by just saying Kip Thorne though the same thing and did not think anything else. Physics16 (talk) 13:53, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Two external link sections

Should I consolidate the two external link sections? Astropiloto (talk) 13:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Space inside a wormhole

From my understanding,a wormhole is an immediate connection between two points in space time. There is no space "within the wormhole". If you entered one end of the wormhole, you would immediatly be at the other point in space time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Obolisk0430 (talk • contribs) 16:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not an instantaneous jump of any kind. A "wormhole" is supposed to be a continuous region within a complete 4-dimensional manifold, i.e. it's part of the structure of spacetime itself. There is a huge amount of nonsense said about wormholes, even by physicists who really should know better. One of the glaring errors in the current Wikipedia article is the talk about a gravitational singularity at the center of a wormhole; actually the wormhole is entirely nonsingular (locally), and the supposed singularity is merely the result of projecting it onto a flat pseudo-Euclidean asymptotic background space, which itself has a topologically structure inadequate for representing a wormhole. Alas, the article, largely by inheritance from the cited sources, is too messed up about such matters to be easily straightened out by simple edits. — DAGwyn (talk) 10:53, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Agree: well said. David Spector (talk) 14:47, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

well said. its can be right. because when something put in a wormhole we are able to see the other wormhole. Its same like remote viewing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.207.138.55 (talk) 06:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.252.156.11 (talk) 20:14, 24 January 2014 (UTC) 

This is not a forum for personal opinions or general discussion about a subject!Armchairphysicist (talk) 18:44, 11 February 2014 (UTC) therefore I deleted preceding comments by198.252.156.11 wp:soap

Faster than light travel only applies 'locally'?

This appears to be another reference to a misinterpretation of Alan Guth's theory of inflation.

Wormholes, like Guth's theory, are a throwback to pre-1905 ideas about aether and absolute space-time. Light still requires no medium in which to travel, and it is still impossible to determine absolute speed of anything relative to empty space-time, as proven by the original Michaelson-Morely experiment. Science fiction aside, there is no reality or parallel universe in which it makes any sense that the ends of a hypothetical wormhole should remain fixed in space-time, relative to the aether, or anything else. Wormholes should not be presented as though they are science until or unless one is actually created or observed. A confirmation of the Casimir effect is always put forward as a justification. It is manifestly not a demonstration even of the calculated or theoretical magnitude of the the 'predicted' force, much less solid proof of the possibility of stable wormholes. Danshawen (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2014 (UTC)danshawen

What about the stationary mouth?

"A traveler who entered the accelerated mouth at this moment would exit the stationary mouth when its clock also read 2004, in the same region but now eight years in the past."

What happens if someone enters the stationary mouth? PraetorianFury (talk) 22:05, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

"Possible existence of wormholes in the central regions of halos" paper relevant?

http://arxiv.org/abs/1501.00490 Does that say anything that should be added to the article? This says it was published on the Annals of Physics. --TiagoTiago (talk) 22:11, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Bad Link!

Einstein-Rosen Bridge links to a music cut. Would the moderator please supply the correct link? aajacksoniv (talk) 09:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The disambiguation link to the music EP appears to be correctly formatted. Can you be more precise? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 09:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no physics entry for Einstein-Rosen bridge? The link to a music entry creates a confusion. EP is not a clear identifier. aajacksoniv (talk) 10:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If wormholes were possible opening one would generate a gravitational shock wave

Give or take the validity of the theory of gravitational waves, it would seem that opening wormholes would resulting in the instantaneous influence of gravity between two otherwise disconnect areas of space time with different curvatures and this transition would generate a gravitational shock wave at both end of the hole, which would be detectable and the events would be synchronised. The absence of evidence of this phenomena can't be taken as evidence of the absence wormholes but it does suggest that the idea needs further consideration as to how closely it is supported by what we know of the observable universe. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.93.174 (talk) 10:07, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Wormhole/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Again it does not have an GA and it is definitly better than a start article. I rated it high on importance, because it is an important topic but not top-priority! Snailwalker | talk 16:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 16:03, 15 October 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 16:06, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

"Robust theoretical strength"?

It may be that some "equations of the theory of general relativity have valid solutions that contain wormholes". But is that the only basis for arguing for "its robust theoretical strength"? If that is the case, this is contrary to the scientific method, and not at all robust.122.59.83.216 (talk) 08:28, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Relativistic time dilation

The reference to time travel refers to the "relativistic time dilation". But isn't this effectively slowing time, rather than time travel?122.59.83.216 (talk) 08:34, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Etymology of "wormhole"

The article doesn't really say anything about the use of Worm and hole in the name. It's not majorly important to wormholes, but seems like it ought to be mentioned.--Varkman (talk) 00:41, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

It's like a hole. Made by a worm. LMK if you have any other questions. --74.88.34.126 (talk) 21:50, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

(Lack of) observational evidence for wormholes

The article previously specified that there is observational evidence for wormholes. In fact, there is none. Since I can't provide a reference to something that doesn't exist, I'll just provide this Physics Stack Exchange Question link — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.161.136.200 (talk) 23:23, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't think all wormholes are ER bridges

While physicists have called ER bridges wormholes, I don't think it's good for Wikipedia to treat ER bridge = wormhole. It's routine in sci-fi to have "wormholes" that work in ways physicists would not predict, such as enabling faster-than-light travel without time travel. See the playbook of Stargate SG-1 for more properties of wormholes that are only nominally related to actual science. If this article is supposed to be about ER bridges as a scientific concept, let it be titled "Einstein-Rosen Bridge". The word "wormhole" encompasses both the scientific concept and its pop-culture incarnation (which is only ever called an ER bridge to make it sound more "sciency") Qwertie (talk) 07:06, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Metrics section

The metrics section was simply removed with a simple reason but is unreasonable (I quote : "Poorly developed, not tied into article, removed.")

Let us examine for a while the claims:

"Poorly developed" : But what would you have me do ? This is a summary of the most important mathematical facts. To write all the formulation here would've been superfluous and would take not hours but days - besides one needs General Relativity which is already described in details in other articles; one would only have to properly relate different articles to understand this section. Articles are build in time from the contributions of many.

"not tied into article" : Why would the treat of the theoretical physical description of an Einstein-Rosen bridge be unsuited for an Encyclopedic article ?

"removed" : You can't just remove a section without first having a suitable talk with other contributors or without getting more opinions regarding the section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mihaibarboi (talk • contribs) 13:00, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Wormhole gravity

puny miniscule Planck sized wormholes which last for negligible amount of time, and some people claim that cause coordinate spacetime mistakes in relation to the maximum permissible speed, thus we have natural correction and gravitational statistically aggregate motion — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4114:C800:A1BE:2A55:7964:33B6 (talk) 03:00, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The black hole torus theory with the two polar geysers

Some people claim that the black hole is a torus with two polar geysers and at the center there is no space-time at all. Mathematically it's the only thorough and correct solution. Due to Hawking radiation that torus isn't absolutely perfect. So then all black holes are spinning tori. The black holes who aren't tori and don't spin are called morοnic exophysical mistakes. The fact that the polar geysers are entangled is extremely fundamental!!! Jesus Christ didn't know that and that's why they executed her (resurrection my αςς). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4116:4E00:3D75:5D3B:E453:D62 (talk) 11:17, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Much of the article is not backed by the mathematics

The "party line" on black holes has traditionally embedded several mistakes, some of which are repeated in the article. The most onerous is lack of recognition that the usual axis labels (radial and time) inside the supposed "event horizon" need to be swapped to track the signature of the metric. Anyway, the so-called maximal extension of the Schwarzschild solution doesn't need to be artificially spliced on; it occurs naturally if one really understands working with manifolds. The description from the point of view of a remote observer breaks down as the curvature becomes stronger, until it is downright misleading. A working group ought to be formed to straighten out this mess. — DAGwyn (talk) 05:56, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Actually there is enough philosophy, but the mathematics was not embedded, probably due to lack of time. Also the (article's) text needs a little clean-up - like breaking long texts into shorter paragraphs, which can be afterwards extended with the mathematical formulation(s). — Mihaibarboi

Clarify black hole relationship

The article currently doesn't do much to clarify the relationship between black holes and wormholes. Right now, I see mention of eternal black holes with respect to the E-R bridge, but that's just a passing remark. I feel like this could be improved. 47.32.217.164 (talk) 14:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

That's a valid criticism. Einstein considered the "matter" term T in the field equation G=T to be a temporary stand-in that would not be necessary in a more complete theory. Eddington pointed out that the equation could be taken as 'defining' T in terms of the gravitational field, similarly to Maxwell's theory where we can recognize and measure a charge by observing the divergence of its electric field. The Schwarzschild solution has long been interpreted as describing a simple (non-spinning, uncharged) mass, and all a "black hole" amounts to is a Schwarzschild solution with the generating mass confined to a sufficiently small volume. If we take the Einstein/Eddington point of view, all (non-spinning, uncharged) mass-generated gravitational fields are alike, with non-dense masses (presumably an aggregation of atoms) not being called black holes. The only significant difference would be whether a freely falling test body would ever come in contact with the generating mass. — DAGwyn (talk) 08:33, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Explanation as to why the wormhole is not a hypothetical concept, but only needs experimental proof in the domain of macroscopic physical objects

I have removed the word hypothetical from the text "A wormhole is a 'hypothetical' concept that represents a solution of the Einstein field equations: a non-trivial structure linking separate points in spacetime." since the concept is not hypothetical and it is backed by various theoretical researches and by some unaccepted evidence, like wormholes = entanglement (see ER=EPR) - since Einstein introduced the concept of "bridge" to match the similar concept in quantum mechanics - entanglement. I quote Einstein "Under these circumstances it does not seem superfluous to raise the question as to what extent the method of general relativity provides the possibility of accounting for atomic phenomena. It is to such a possibility that we wish to call attention in the present paper in spite of the fact that we are not yet able to decide whether this thoery can account for quantum phenomena." [...] "On the other hand one does not see a priori whether the theory contains the quantum phenomena. Nevertheless one should not exclude a priori the possibility that the theory may contain them. Thus it might turn out that only such regular many-bridge solutions can exist for which the "charges" of the electrical bridges are numerically equal to one another an only two different "masses" occur for the mass bridges, and for which the stationary "motions" are subject to restrictions like those which we encounter in the quantum theory. In any case here is a possibility for a general relativistic theory of matter which is logically completely satisfying and which contains no new hypothetical elements." ]) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mihaibarboi (talk • contribs) 09:02, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Regarding the speculative word "yet"

Regarding the speculative word "yet" from the text "Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but they have not yet been proven to exist": Kip Thorne mentioned in a conference ([need citation]) that his on to proving experimentally wormholes. Also Leonard Susskind mentioned about several of his ex-students of having experiments under going (see ER=EPR ). So since there are experiments under going, it seems fair to mention them (aka the wormholes) at least at speculative.

The argument "wikipedia does not predict future" is not valid, since evidence of wormholes (aka entanglement) exist, but it is not accepted by some members of the scientific community (some accept it, some they don't - this is called a "debate"). While this debate still exist it seems normal to use speculative word yet. Mihaibarboi (talk)

You are trying to imply something by using "yet". It is not WP:NEUTRAL language. If something is not proven simply say so. If there are notable experiments then mention them. Volunteer1234 (talk) 18:29, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The mainstream view is that: wormholes as described in this article could exist, insofar as our current knowledge goes; observable wormhole creation in the laboratory is beyond our capabilities for the foreseeable future; some astronomical observations might indicate instances of wormholes but could also be due to something else; and any of the foregoing might change as our knowledge and understanding improves. Thus, despite popular use of the concept as though it were already proven, it is currently too much to ask for proof of wormhole existence, and it is possible that wormhole theory is incorrect, either factually or in interpretation. This is an unresolved situation that may be resolved one way or another in the future. Thus the word "yet" correctly conveys *important* information about our current state of knowledge. Without it, the reader is likely to think that wormholes must exist, because there is an article about them. No matter whether the article were to claim that wormholes do exist or that they do not exist, it would be claiming something that is not known. If the simple use of "yet" doesn't satisfy you, then there really needs to be an outright statement like "Whether wormholes actually exist is not known." However, that has an implicit "currently" or "yet", so it's simpler to retain the wording (with "yet") that is already in place. — DAGwyn (talk) 05:40, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Used your suggestion, thanks! Volunteer1234 (talk) 03:13, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for your work! — DAGwyn (talk) 04:49, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

References

Einstein-Rosen Bridges

I created a new subcategory of Einstein-Rosen Bridges. It certainly deserves the recognition. 73.85.202.62 (talk) 15:25, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

ER=EPR wormholes

Seems like the article could include discussion of ER=EPR wormholes, which were recently created and discussed widely in the media. Either as part of the existing ER bridges section or elsewhere. Sanpitch (talk) 00:21, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

After reading more, I'm less convinced that the experiment described in the articles I linked to is notable. I guess it does not need to be referenced in this article. Sanpitch (talk) 01:11, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

Well, the research seems promising. Here is a nice 17 min video from Quanta Magazine that describes the computer simulation of "sending" information through the wormhole. Alexcalamaro (talk) 06:22, 1 December 2022 (UTC)