Re: Wormholes
Damon said: So essentially, you could plant a wormhole opening on a ship, send it thousands of LY away, but if the subjective time on the ship is only a few years to reach the destination, then a space-faring civilization could theoretically spread throughout the galaxy in the space of a few decades or even centuries? Yes, that's exactly right, although your terminology is a little different to that used by physicists. It's not really the subjective time on the ship because it's actually an *objective* time. The only time that has any physical meaning independent of the chosen coordinate frame is the time as measured by clocks (the proper time), and that time applies only to the path along which the clock travelled. There's no difference in objectivity whatsoever between the clocks on the ship and on Earth. The problem only arises because we naively think we can say which events at the destination happen at the same time as any particular event at home. But in fact we cannot do so in any physically meaningful way. But its not really time travel (or at least not the cool kind where you could talk to your great grandpa when he was your age) because the displacement is in both time AND space? Heh. Almost seems TOO easy... The difficulty arises if the colony sends a wormhole back to Earth. Then it's possible to make a path from the future of Earth to its past, and so to violate causality. (You can do this with a single wormhole too, just by sending one of its mouths out and then bringing it back.) The smart money seems to be on wormhole networks in this situation being overloaded with quantum fluctuations and collapsing just as they would otherwise form a time machine. Now, I have to fill the backstory of a technologically advanced, wormhole using civilization completely and utterly collapsing, so that Humans (and alien successor races) can stumble on that wormhole network... That was more or less the secret plot in my Ad Astra rpg: http://www.theculture.org/adastra/ You might also like my sketch of the background for an as yet unwritten novel about universe-spanning wormhole networks: http://www.culturelist.org/cdr/article.cfm?id=35 Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Wormholes
Anyone have a good, easy to understand, description of possible tansversable wormholes? An essay easily grasped by a layperson? I've been doing some research for an SF RPG I'm running (the characters are still dirtside, and I can leave them there for as long as I need), and I think the implications are pretty profound. In particular with regards to different time frames potential colonies might exist in. This would have profound effects on the setting. But there are plenty of elements I don't understand (like how a wormhole can traverse timeframes, unless I'm misunderstanding). Damon. = Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: Legends Aussie Centurion Mk.5/1 __ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wormholes
Damon said: Anyone have a good, easy to understand, description of possible tansversable wormholes? An essay easily grasped by a layperson? I've been doing some research for an SF RPG I'm running (the characters are still dirtside, and I can leave them there for as long as I need), and I think the implications are pretty profound. In particular with regards to different time frames potential colonies might exist in. This would have profound effects on the setting. But there are plenty of elements I don't understand (like how a wormhole can traverse timeframes, unless I'm misunderstanding). Here's an article I wrote on wormholes for the Culture List a few years ago: http://www.culturelist.org/cdr/article.cfm?id=89 There are various other relevant articles there too, including my Very Brief History of Time series: http://www.culturelist.org/cdr/category.cfm?id=45 This series is slowly being replaced by a newer Light, the Universe and Everything series on my weblog. That series starts at http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000104.html I'd be happy to try to answer any questions you might have! Rich ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: Wormholes
Here's an article I wrote on wormholes for the Culture List a few years ago: http://www.culturelist.org/cdr/article.cfm?id=89 So to see if I have this figured, if a ship had a journey to another star, and in Earth time the journey took 15 years, but ship time it took 5 years, if you waited 5 years on earth, and stepped through the wormhole, you would arrive on the ship, in the new system, 10 years later (by Earth-time perspective). Furthermore, for as long as the wormhole exists, the opening on the new colony will always be 10 years in the future (and the opening on Earth always 10 years in the past)? So essentially, you could plant a wormhole opening on a ship, send it thousands of LY away, but if the subjective time on the ship is only a few years to reach the destination, then a space-faring civilization could theoretically spread throughout the galaxy in the space of a few decades or even centuries? But its not really time travel (or at least not the cool kind where you could talk to your great grandpa when he was your age) because the displacement is in both time AND space? Heh. Almost seems TOO easy... Now, I have to fill the backstory of a technologically advanced, wormhole using civilization completely and utterly collapsing, so that Humans (and alien successor races) can stumble on that wormhole network... Damon. Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum. http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: Legends Aussie Centurion Mk.5/1 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
