If a ship cannot go faster than light....?

Question

In the very distant future, could a starship supposedly generate it's own wormhole around the ship? The spacecraft could generate massive amounts of magnetic energy and other forms of energy that would cause space-time distortions that would limit the worm-field to be the same shape as the ship. That way, the ship could travel through the wormhole and yet remain on course. I'm NOT crazy, I just had this idea. Could it happen?

Answer 1

Not crazy - just a few things that you might be a little unclear on.

A Wormhole isn't likely to be traversable - and survivable - by a human ship. The forces within that womrhole, if they exist, would probably destroy anything going through it.

"Generate massive amounts of ... energy" - That's also going to be a problem. You can't really 'generate' energy. You can convert it, but you can't really create it or destroy it. The best you could get would be direct matter->energy conversion and the amount of mass you'd need to generate the stellar-order energies needed for a wormhole (which are quite theoretical!) would be um...prohibitive.

Other commenters have talked about the 'magnetic and other forms of energy'.

I always liked Campbell's ideas from "Islands of Space" for a warp drive. - Check out 'Black Star Passes' and "Islands of Space" at your local library.

Another book you might enjoy with a similar concept is Heinlein's "Starman Jones" - Check that one out too.

Keep thinking though - never let the fact that ONE idea doesn't work distract you from the grander scheme of things!

Orion

Answer 2

Using the KNOWN rules of physics, the energy required to make a wormhole is way, way, way too high, like maybe even more energy than there is in the universe.

Maybe someday we'll be able to create artificial gravity and bend space, but there's almost no reason to. Magnets and simple rocekts and turbines are much stronger than gravity (the power to float a magnetic train is easily possible today.. the power needed to make anti-gravity to float a train would probably be ridiculously high, it would be really COOL, but a waste of energy, since magnets are so much stronger)

But maybe some genius will find some loophole in quantum physics, or something we have no idea of yet.

Anyway, no aliens have visitied us yet, which is strong evidence that FTL travel is impossible.

Answer 3

The mass required to produce that much energy to produce a wormhole big enough for a ship to pass though is equal to the total mass of the Universe. You could do it but when you arrived on the other side there would be nothing else left in the Universe

Answer 4

despite the capabilities of speed or warp and worm holes, etc. there is no possible way that a ship could travel great distances due to navigation issues. the computer processor power required to track the trajectories of every moving body in space is huge. let alone we have no system of seeing all the moving rocks out there. most likely if you decided to go out into space you'd either hit something or never be able to return (remember we're still not sure if galaxies, star systems or the entire universe rotate.
or in other words better start recycling cause we got a long stay here.

Answer 5

We will never travel faster than light.
The worm hole deal is very controversial.
You have to assume that 2 points in space,light years apart, are someway in contact with each other.
A worm hole would have to bring these two points together.
I would have to say it will never be done.

Answer 6

Maybe in the very very distant future, but the amount of energy require would be ridiculous.

Answer 7

Magnetic energy, or any kind of energy, does not cause space-time distortions. Mass causes space-time distortions, which we perceive as gravity.