Wormholes, time travel, and all other ho-hums...

traveling with worms

IThinkICan29:

“Wormhole” is another name for an Einstein-Rosen bridge, named after Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen who, back in about, oh, 1935, noticed that there was a theoretically possible way to traverse space at faster than light speeds. According to one model, taking this bridge between two separate points of a universe would indeed put the traveler in a distant part of his own universe, and, according to another model, taking this bridge would simply put him in another, parallel, universe. Still another model, which stipulates accelerating one end of the wormhole, allows for time travel. These latter doohickeys are sometimes called “timeholes.” Of course back in 1974 a mathematical physicist by the name of Frank Tipler figured out that if you spin a massive cylinder at near-light speed, you’ll generate closed timelike loops with which you might go hopscotching through time. Interestingly enough, a fellow named John Gribbin calculated that a 100-km-long cylinder with a 10-km radius and a mass equal to that of the sun, rotating twice every millisecond, would meet Tipler’s criteria well enough to generate CTLs. What’s more, this rotation rate is very near that of some fast pulsars, which means that there may well be naturally occurring time-travel thingamadoohickeybobs.

There are rules regarding such things, of course, and the rules differ between what science says about them and what science fiction makes of them. The trick in science fiction is to make the science plausible (most easily by saying as little as possible about it, though some have had much to say about it, e.g. Larry Niven and David Weber). Thus far, there seems to be far more usage of wormholes as devices for FTL travel than for time travel.

That aside, the biggest rule of all is to write an entertaining story.

A stable wormhole is used all the time on Stargate SG-1, too.

I recall an article on real wormholes and time travel in (written by a physicist who works at NASA) in Stepping Through the Stargate.

I'm not even remotely a science geek, but I understood everything he had to say about real wormholes and how they work --and he touched on time travel too, I think.

Or killing your own grandfather or whatever, yes.

If you're writing a time-travel story with any fantasy to it at all, I recommend reading Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates. Definitely the best time travel story I have ever read.

Powers can be depressing because he is just so good, but we have to set our standards high, right?

Causality issues (the "grandfather paradox") are often cited why time travel as we commonly imagine it isn't possible. Personally, given the stakes (suddenly never existing), I hope they're right.

OTOH, I think they're inventing a paradox where there would simply a broken causality loop. If you go back in time (pick a method, any method), you've just appeared in a version of somebody's "present" with no dependency on your own personal history up to that point (more than likely, you have no personal history at that point).

The second you appear, you've already begun to change the timeline (butterfly effect) and depending on how far back you've gone, that could be just as effective as cacking ol' gramps. But would that cause you to disappear? According to the "Back to the Future" theory, yes. Are they right? Probably not. Perhaps if you were some type of matter projection, interacting with the past but still anchored in the present... maybe.

More likely: Once you appeared in the "previous present", having carried your mass from the future, you marked the first new matter to appear in the universe since the big bang. Would that have any major consequences? Imbalance the universe? Doubt it. At worst, assuming they could sample the strength of your own personal "Fine Structure Constant" to a very, very tiny degree, they might be able to detect that you were from the future. You might be eaten, burned at the stake or vivisected, but you probably wouldn't just fade away (you'd decompose normally).

Time travel has been done in so many ways... from Terminator to Star Trek to Back to the Future – and they all put their own spin on it. It's cliché for these boards, but it's right: as long as you make it believable, you're probably safe.

I read an essay by Larry Niven some years back, wherein he debunked most of the traditional science fiction stable of tricks: faster-than-light travel, time travel, matter transporters, etc. Then, in his conclusion, he stated that regardless of how 'wrong' all these things are, they still make for great plot devices.

Read his "Rainbow Mars" novel for a wonderful tongue-in-cheek example.

My favourite time travel story still has to be the one where Fry becomes his own grandfather

Innkeeper, I think the story you read might have been "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury.

Anyway, as to IThinkICan29 and the topic of this thread, I don't think it's as important in science fiction to be correct in the technical sense as it is to paint a picture so real that it seems plausible. Be consistant in your own world is the main thing I'd advise.

Mentioning time travel in any story is very tricky ground. No matter how good the tale, you're going to find readers who will stick on some time-travel issue that buggers up the logic of it all, and they won't get beyond.

Science in science fiction does have to remain true to science as we know it, or follow a logical progression. But Fantasy can be anything you want. Just keep in mind what Innkeeper and Ordinary Guy have mentioned - certain logic applies in time travel that, when ignored, will send me completely between!

As it will other readers.

Innkeeper said:

I once read a really neat sci-fi short story about a man who traveled back to visit the dinosaurs. He was cautioned to NOT step off the designated path. He stepped off the path and crushed a butterfly. When he returned to the future, everything was different - bleak and gray ...

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That story stuck with me, too.

I read somewhere that if time travel were possible, it would only work backwards. Even then, you're not truly going back in time in your own universe, but creating a divergent universe where you did. Meaning, anything you do in the "past" isn't going to do a damn thing to the universe you came from.

I wish I could remember what exactly this article was. It was pretty interesting, and it made a lot of sense.

If you can only travel in time backwards and only to an alternative universe, does that mean you could never go home again.

Arrrggghhhh!!! I'm being pelted by idea-sleet.

That was "Sound of Thunder" -- they made a rather awful movie of it last year, starring Ben Kingsley.

I have yet to read a time-travel story that is without flaws in logic. But most are entertaining. The thing is, nobody has ever time-travel before (at least not that we know of), and everything is simply theories. So as long as you make the science plausible (I like the idea that "the least you explain, the better it is") and the story engaging, your readers will suspend their disbelief.

Birol, that's one thing I had a problem with Crichton's Timeline, because according to the story, they actually travel "back" to an alternate universe -- but somehow everything in the past affects the "current" universe, including a pair of eyeglasses that became an antique... how's that for stupid?

Right now I'm writing a short story involving time-travel. It's tricky because I am not sure how much I should explain the "technology" -- if I don't explain it, the readers might scratch their heads and say "What the heck?" But if I explain it, they would most likely say, "That's just ridiculous with no scientific foundation." What to do, what to do? Certainly Ray Bradbury didn't explain the whole scientific background of his time-travel in "Sound of Thunder" except that the "butterfly effect" is a cool high concept.

A great short story using a 'wormhole' for time-travel (or at least time-travelling messages) was in Analog April 2005.

See Brian Plante's "Letters of Transit".

It seems to have a similar story to the upcoming movie 'The Lake House' - which seems to do a similar thing without the sci-fi aspect.

Not sure how this really contributes to the discussion, but it was a nice variation on the 'worm-hole' time travel story.

Oh - and most of the 'harder' sci-fi readers would expect a worm-hole to be no wider than an atom or two at the absolute most. But that's still big enough to pass a message through....

Mac

Here's my advice. Read up on Tesla technology and read of Einstein's theories. Don't be afraid of the Star Trek stigma. I'm not into Star Trek at all, but I'm into astro-physics and quantum physics. Mad scientists are cool, too.

Study the Philadelphia Experiment. Tesla technology was involved in it, and the US govt. has experienced with it, according to the things I've read. Just remember no one has entered a blackhole, whitehole, or wormhole. What people say are only speculation. A blackhole may not rip you apart, but it might.

A black hole must be confronted with a force as big as it's gravitational pull. The only thing in theory would be a white hole. I tend to think a big explosion/emplosion (sp) may do the trick. It would have to be a huge blast though and it would have to line up just right, that is if it's man-made. Natural occurance would fall under a white hole, I suppose.


Good luck,


Jeff

Pthom said:

I read an essay by Larry Niven some years back, wherein he debunked most of the traditional science fiction stable of tricks: faster-than-light travel, time travel, matter transporters, etc. Then, in his conclusion, he stated that regardless of how 'wrong' all these things are, they still make for great plot devices.

Read his "Rainbow Mars" novel for a wonderful tongue-in-cheek example.

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But is is worth noting than many things science believed were impossible even ten years ago are suddenly possible again, including matter transporters and time travel. Both now lie firmly in the realm of the possible, according to quantum mechanics.

Whether or not faster than light travel is possible seems now to depend on whether particle physics or string theory physics has it right. If string theory proves right, faster than light travel is again theoretically possible.

Not that science ever said traveling faster than light was impossible. It's reaching the speed of light that's impossible. But even here, it's only impossible if you try reaching the speed of light by acceleration of mass. Take away either the mass or the acceleration, and you can travel as fast as you like.

James, I'm probably the first guy to say "hooray for cool neat stuff" and I really do wish I could bop around the planet like Louis Wu or one of his Pierson's Puppeteer friends on 'stepping plates.' But Niven himself says that doing so violates a pretty strong principle of physics: namely, on a matter transport trip from A to B, what do you do with the volume you occupied when you leave spot A and what do you do with all the stuff that's already at B? At A, there's a horrendous thunderclap as air rushes to occupy the volume you vacated, and at B you cause a giant wind pushing away all the air that's in the spot you suddenly occupy. (the essay went into much greater depth and as I said, concluded with something like "But it sure is a cool idea."

As for matter transportation and quantum mechanics, it works, but only with the very small: ie, sub atomics. String theory(s) are zeroing in on possibilities we haven't even imagined for sure. And as for FTL travel, I think the biggest problem with popular depictions of it, is that folks go about achieving it in glorified automobiles. (Well, okay, fancy futuristic space ships, but what's a car anyway, compared to an ox cart?) If a story depends on folks managing cross-galactic visits before lunch, I much prefer some sort of instantaneous translation, on the order of the stargate or of the likes of the machine in Sagan's "Contact." Let's leave accelerations to Third Street or Bonneville Salt Flats.

It's all relative...

Jamesaritchie said:

...Not that science ever said traveling faster than light was impossible. It's reaching the speed of light that's impossible. But even here, it's only impossible if you try reaching the speed of light by acceleration of mass. Take away either the mass or the acceleration, and you can travel as fast as you like.

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Very true. We get nailed by the mass asymptote.

The closer we get to C, the more massive we become, which presumably follows a mathematical curve called an "asymptote" which gets closer and closer to C without ever touching it. It's frustrating for the futurist that would like to see brute-force speed.

...But who knows: there may be discoveries in the future that find loopholes. Newtonian physics (which gave 100% prediction within our frame of reference for a couple hundred years) gave way to relativistic physics (which explained new phenomena we found as we broadened our horizons). As we push boundaries, we may find ourselves shedding special relativity and describing the universe in terms of "extended relativity."

Any approach that works, though – anything to get us from here to there is going to make for exciting times. Until those times, we'll have to settle for some good SF.

I have time travel in my story. It isn't tech based at all. I have two worlds, Orina (lotech) and Comenacha (hitech). On Orina, they find portals that lead to many different worlds, on of them being COmenaucha. Macera of Orina is messing with the portals and accidently transports Beatrice from Comenaucha to Orina. But the two worlds move through time at a different pace, so when he tries to put her back in Comenaucha, he puts her back in her past, and chaos ensues. So I guess mine is mystical? The Orinan's make the portals work by going into a prayer/meditative state while weaveing at a loom, and 'weave the fabric of the universe'. Macera gets it wrong because he eschews the old religious ways and thinks he can do it his way.

Bus tickets to Barnard's Star

Pthom said:

James, I'm probably the first guy to say "hooray for cool neat stuff" and I really do wish I could bop around the planet like Louis Wu or one of his Pierson's Puppeteer friends on 'stepping plates.' But Niven himself says that doing so violates a pretty strong principle of physics: namely, on a matter transport trip from A to B, what do you do with the volume you occupied when you leave spot A and what do you do with all the stuff that's already at B? At A, there's a horrendous thunderclap as air rushes to occupy the volume you vacated, and at B you cause a giant wind pushing away all the air that's in the spot you suddenly occupy. (the essay went into much greater depth and as I said, concluded with something like "But it sure is a cool idea."

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What Niven was describing, according to your quote here, isn't so much science problems as they are engineering challenges – and an enterprising (so to speak) SF writer should be able to find a million ways to conquer those. The beauty of it is that as they find holes and plug them for the audience, the story becomes more believable.

For instance, let's look at that "Stuff at Point B" problem...

Let's assume your transmat/teleport/transporter is beaming you and your "away" party to the surface. Our first given is that you have the technology to analyze, disintegrate and capture a complex pattern of matter fast enough that blood isn't spilling all over your transport chamber. Second, that your equipment can broadcast a collimated particle beam (actually zapping matter from A to B). Third, and perhaps most impressively, your folk have the ability to stop the beam in mid air and reassemble the original mass pattern including energy surges that were happening when the breakdown process began (which would include such energy waves as the momentum of chemical nerve impulses telling your heart to beat).

If you can do all this, it should be absolutely trivial to scan for an open spot to transport your team, then – a moment before the team is beamed in for reassembly – a preparatory beam simply creates a vacuum into which the team will be assembled.

The thunderclap can be handled a dozen different ways. First, the transporter could beam in air surrounding the team, filling the void. Or... the transporter merely holds the air it moved out and moves it back in once the team is "resolved." Either way, problem solved – and the writer can throw in a note about experiencing a minor wave of over-pressure as his consciousness faded back in.

Engineering problems... solved. That's really half the fun of writing SF.

Pthom said:

As for matter transportation and quantum mechanics, it works, but only with the very small: ie, sub atomics. String theory(s) are zeroing in on possibilities we haven't even imagined for sure. And as for FTL travel, I think the biggest problem with popular depictions of it, is that folks go about achieving it in glorified automobiles. (Well, okay, fancy futuristic space ships, but what's a car anyway, compared to an ox cart?) If a story depends on folks managing cross-galactic visits before lunch, I much prefer some sort of instantaneous translation, on the order of the stargate or of the likes of the machine in Sagan's "Contact." Let's leave accelerations to Third Street or Bonneville Salt Flats.

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That's the joy of having a choice. Personally, I don't mind the "accelerations" (and the instant transport always struck me as closer to fantasy). It means either the writer has found a novel way around it or they're going to be concentrating on a different aspect of SF and the acceleration tech is simply a plot device.

I wouldn't be too quick to count out the "acceleration" mind-set though. Granted, current "transporting" is more about quantum effects, but on the same level, I doubt Madame Curie could've imagined CERN. If nothing else, Big Science tends to create hot rods in pursuit of knowledge.

Whether true or not, I think Doc Brown's alternate timeline description in Back to the Future II was brilliant and made those movies work.

I remember that butterfly story too. Awesome.

Think about the science behind the stuff in your stories, but like others have said above, when actually writing it, keep in mind that the reader doesn't need to know all the nitty gritty. I like to imagine the reader as someone using a digital camera. They don't need to know how the light moves through the lens and impinges on the CCD and is stored in silicon based flash memory and so on, they just need to know that when you push the button, a picture of what they had the camera pointed at shows up on the viewscreen.

sassandgroove said:

I have time travel in my story. It isn't tech based at all. I have two worlds, Orina (lotech) and Comenacha (hitech). On Orina, they find portals that lead to many different worlds, on of them being COmenaucha. Macera of Orina is messing with the portals and accidently transports Beatrice from Comenaucha to Orina. But the two worlds move through time at a different pace, so when he tries to put her back in Comenaucha, he puts her back in her past, and chaos ensues. So I guess mine is mystical? The Orinan's make the portals work by going into a prayer/meditative state while weaveing at a loom, and 'weave the fabric of the universe'. Macera gets it wrong because he eschews the old religious ways and thinks he can do it his way.

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Very, very mystical... but just showing that someone can "get it wrong" demonstrates that there is some definite method to the process and that alone could help make the magic believable.

ChunkyC said:

Whether true or not, I think Doc Brown's alternate timeline description in Back to the Future II was brilliant and made those movies work.

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It's all about suspension of disbelief. When you've got characters you care about and they're riding some good dramatic momentum, most of us forget the technical quibbles and take the ride along with 'em. For that story, we're guests in their universe and having an exciting time of it.

I didn't agree with the explanations, but that Doc Brown made an explanation – and the story was consistent with it – made me drop my guard and go for the ride. I still don't agree with alternate timeline descriptions but that doesn't make me think any less of the story. After all: it's all just speculation.

ChunkyC said:

Think about the science behind the stuff in your stories, but like others have said above, when actually writing it, keep in mind that the reader doesn't need to know all the nitty gritty. I like to imagine the reader as someone using a digital camera. They don't need to know how the light moves through the lens and impinges on the CCD and is stored in silicon based flash memory and so on, they just need to know that when you push the button, a picture of what they had the camera pointed at shows up on the viewscreen.

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Interesting analogy.

What you've described is the essence of a character-driven SF story. Making it work that way really is a fantastic level – it creates a story that can reach beyond a genre and tug at the whole human experience.

The only downside is that it seems there are a lot of SF writers that have the point-and-shoot approach to science as well. If the subject matter is so potent by itself that tourist snapping will do, groovy – especially if the science never really rises to plot significance. But... a disregard for science is liable to take many readers out of a story.

OTOH, Ansel Adams knew everything there was to know about photography and used it to the Nth degree. Still, the pictures he created don't make us think about photography, they drag us right into the landscapes he captured.

RG570 said:

I read somewhere that if time travel were possible, it would only work backwards. Even then, you're not truly going back in time in your own universe, but creating a divergent universe where you did.

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I think Kage Baker's company books do the first of thi but not the second. Has anyone read them? I keep meaning to but reading other things first...