Wormholes in space and time – the real final frontier

By Dick Pelletier

     In the not-to-distant future, astronauts prepare for a launch at the Kennedy Space Center, but they will not be boarding any rocket-driven spacecraft. Instead, they simply face a scanning device that instantly “beams” them through a wormhole to a planet billions of miles away.

     As sci-fi fans know, wormholes offer an opportunity to connect distant points in space, thereby bypassing the need for faster-than-light propulsion. You enter the mouth of a wormhole on Earth and instantly exit to anyplace in the universe – or even to one of the countless other universes that may exist. Wormholes moved from the realm of science fiction to serious science in 1985 when Cal Tech physicist Kip Thorne convinced colleagues that they could be used for future space travel.

     Assuming that breakthroughs in nanotech and information technologies enable us to one day create and manage wormholes, experts ponder the likely path of development for this speculative technology and offer ideas for advantages ranging from communications to interstellar colonization.

     Wormhole enthusiast Tim Ventura, in a recent post on his website, americanantigravity.com, describes how this futuristic technology could materialize:
 

• First-generation wormholes will allow transmission of information at faster-than-light speeds which will be useful in many of today’s real-time communications. Benefits range from creating a more real virtual reality system to eliminating satellite transmission delays.

• Second-generations will enable us to transmit and receive conventional data and create “eavesdrop” systems by placing “virtual wormcams” in space to capture pictures of objects. This will be extremely valuable for mapping planets and asteroids in distant star systems.

• Third-generations will be the first to transmit tiny bits of matter, which could be “morphed” into nanobots programmed to terraform new planets, making them human-friendly.

• Fourth-generations will become a Star Trek-like transporter. They can scan a space traveler atom-by-atom and feed the data through wormholes with instructions for nanobots to rebuild the body at the destination site. Transported copies will be indistinguishable from original persons; and on confirmation of a successful rebuild, original bodies will disintegrate, thus preventing the existence of a “duplicate you.”

     Earthtech International’s Dr. Eric Davis suggests that the mouths of fourth-generation wormholes should be 3-to-6-ft wide, which will require an enormous amount of power – equal to the energy output of a star. Today, scientists cannot generate anywhere near this awesome quantity of energy, but with tomorrow’s technologies, many predict it will be possible.

     Sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke agrees that wormholes could help humanity spread its population to the stars. Clarke also suggests that wormholes can be focused on different points in time as well as space. And Princeton physicist Richard Gott adds. “You could enter a wormhole and come out in another time period – or even a different universe.” Famed physicist Stephen Hawking believes that other universes do exist and positive futurists predict that one day we will visit them.

     Will this amazing “magical future” become reality? Scientists at the Cern Particle Accelerator recently claimed that they found a way of detecting entrances and exits to wormholes, and they believe they will soon be able to prove this claim. Stay tuned; positive-thinkers believe that wormhole travel could arrive by 2100.

This article appeared in various print publications and on-line blogs. Comments always welcome.