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28 April 2007

Wormhole in sci-fi

By: Lucian Dorneanu, Science Editor

Are Black Holes Portals to Parallel Universes?

A new study shows they are...

Black holes have always sparked the imagination of many, scientists, sci-fi writers and

common people alike, and many theories about their formation and especially about "what'son the other side?" Astrophysicists now have a pretty good idea about what they are, how

they form and generally what makes them tick.

Or maybe not?

If you ask an astrophysicist what is a black hole, the answer will be more or less something

like that: A black hole is an object with a gravitational field so powerful that no form of matter

or radiation (including light) can escape once it is less than a certain distance from the

center. As not even light can escape, black holes appear black (resulting in the name for

these objects).

But there are some scientists that don't agree with this classical definition.

Physicists Thibault Damour of the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in

Bures-sur-Yvette, France, and Sergey Solodukhin of International University Bremen in

Germany now say that these objects could be structures called wormholes instead.

A new study they performed claims that objects scientists think are black holes could

instead be wormholes leading to other universes. This solution could help solve some

controversial issues about black holes, like the black hole information paradoxproposed by

Stephen Hawking - it suggests that physical information could "disappear" in a black hole. Itis a contentious subject for science since it violated a commonly assumed tenet of science,

that information cannot be destroyed - but could also raise a whole lot of new questions.

A wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that is essentially a "shortcut"

through space and time. A wormhole has at least two mouths which are connected to a

single throat. If the wormhole is traversable, matter can "travel" from one mouth to the other

by passing through the throat. While there is no observational evidence for wormholes,

spacetimes containing wormholes are known to be valid solutions in general relativity.

The two scientists studied what such a wormhole might look like, and were surprised to

discover that it would mimic a black hole so well that it would be virtually impossible to tell

the difference.

A wormhole would attract matter into a giant whirlpool in the same way as for a black hole,

since both objects distort the space around them in the same way.

The hope of distinguishing the two by something called Hawking radiation - an emission of

particles and light which should only come from black holes and would have a characteristic

energy spectrum - is also elusive. This radiation is so weak that it would be completely

swamped by other sources, such as the background glow of microwaves left over from the

big bang, making it unobservable in practice.

Another difference one might hope to exploit is that unlike black holes, wormholes have no

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event horizon. This means that things could go in a wormhole and come back out again. In

fact, theorists say one variety of wormhole wraps back onto itself, so that it leads not to

another universe, but back to its own entrance.

The conclusion is appealing mostly to sci-fi fans, as it's a little bit beyond our technological

capabilities (and the willing to take risks). It seems the only way to decide the issue for sure

with astronomical black holes is to make a daring plunge inside. That would be a dangerous

gamble, because if it is a black hole, the incredibly strong gravitational field inside would

tear apart every atom in your body. Even if it turns out to be a wormhole, the forces insidecould still be deadly.

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