(P.S. This is my expository speech for Advanced English.)
I am always fascinated by the universe and what’s out there. But the thing that captivates my mind and imagination is time travel. Admit it, you are too. But the idea’s just so mind boggling that it is really in the realm of science fiction for us….at least for now. The closest theory on how to achieve time travel is through a wormhole.
First of all, let me get this straight. The wormholes that I’m talking about are NOT the holes made by worms. It is just one of the marvels of the universe. It is dangerous and unexplored. It is weird. Strange. Unknown. Awesome.
Wormholes are hypothetical structures of space-time envisioned as a long thin tunnel connecting points that are separated in space and time. For short, they are shortcuts in space. It is not yet proven that wormholes exist, but if they did, they could make a 10,000 mile walk into a 1 mile walk. Wormholes can pop out not only in space, but also on earth. Pass through one and you’ll end up in a different place, time, or dimension, like time travel.
The idea of wormholes came from Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1935. They wrote a paper in which they showed that general relativity allowed what then were called bridges, but are now called wormholes. But the bridge didn’t last long enough for a spaceship to get through. The ship would run into a singularity as the wormhole pinches off.
To keep a wormhole open, you can show that you need a region of space-time with negative curve, like the surface of a saddle. Ordinary matter, which has a positive energy density, which gives space-time a positive curve, like the surface of a sphere. So what is needed to warp space-time in a way that will allow travel into the past is matter with negative energy density. But I might as well be talking gibberish here. To make it simpler, we need negative matter, not positive matter to keep a wormhole open.
But for now, don’t hold your breaths, because the possibility of time travel may still be a long time in the future. Although a aforementioned Albert Einstein that advanced civilization may open or discover a wormhole. Maybe, when our backs are bent and our hair is gray, we can see what lies between wormhole. Let’s just hope that we will not be that old.
