Celestia Forums

Suppose human technology reaches the point at which we can build stable wormholes to order and keep them wide enough to allow spaceships and the like to pass through.

Suppose I have such a wormhole, say connecting Sol to Mizar. I also have another wormhole in which both mouths are in the Sol system. I want to use this wormhole to travel from Sol to Alcor. Now it would be much quicker to set up if I didn't have to transport the mouth I want to be the Alcor end all the way there through real space.

In this situation would it be possible to transport the Alcor mouth through the wormhole to Mizar and transport it to Alcor from there, or would transporting the wormhole mouth through the Sol-Mizar wormhole destroy one or both wormholes?

chaos syndrome wrote:Suppose human technology reaches the point at which we can build stable wormholes to order and keep them wide enough to allow spaceships and the like to pass through.

Don't forget that we're still waiting for proof that wormholes can be created at all. Currently they're still merely a theoretical possibility, which only means that current theory doesn't disallow them. But then, current theory doesn't disallow an object which spurts pink-polka-dot elephants into the room.

Suppose I have such a wormhole, say connecting Sol to Mizar. I also have another wormhole in which both mouths are in the Sol system. I want to use this wormhole to travel from Sol to Alcor. Now it would be much quicker to set up if I didn't have to transport the mouth I want to be the Alcor end all the way there through real space.

In this situation would it be possible to transport the Alcor mouth through the wormhole to Mizar and transport it to Alcor from there, or would transporting the wormhole mouth through the Sol-Mizar wormhole destroy one or both wormholes?

Given you've already assumed that A) wormholes exist and B) stable wormholes can be created, I don't see why you're so hesitant to make another minor assumption... you've assumed your ass off already, why stop now?

Just assume that the topology of wormholes is like that of ordinary holes, in which case you could easily pass the mouth of one wormhole "along" the space that traveses the other, thereby achieving what you want. Here's some bad ascii art:


Cheers,
Paul

Hello! It seems that my first post on this marvelous forum is going to be nonsense; but perhaps that is what I am best at.

If real wormholes are anything like the imaginary ones we use in the Orion's Arm science fiction scenario, you can't carry an expanded one through another one, because of tidal effects;
but as the original concept of wormholes supposes that there are planck-scale wormholes forming constantly in the vacuum foam, it is inevitable that very small wormholes are going to be present inside expanded ones, as they are present (supposedly) everywhere in space.
This means that surely tiny wormholes can be safely carried through expanded ones, and so speed up the establishment of a network.

(a link to real-life wormhole speculation by Serguei Krasnikov
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/0003092)
and an 'alternate view'
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw103.html

Sorry; I see I will have to remember to log in every time in future.