So, imagine you are trying to tell an astronaut passing by that you like the color of their space suit, you’d be able to hear it yourself in your own spacesuit, but the astronaut with the nice space suit will be hearing your voice after it has been converted to radio waves, then back to normal sound in their own suit. These radio communicators make use of radio waves which can travel through space as they do not need air to do so. The only way they would be able to hear them is with the use of a two-way communicator. But if they tried to speak to another astronaut who happened to float by in space, they would not hear them at all.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.This is just like the air in the spacesuit of an astronaut: the fact that it is a separate self-contained bubble allows the astronaut inside to hear themselves breathe, talk and move. "This triggered a lot of research by a lot of physicists but today, nearly 30 years later, the answer is still unknown." Thorne writes.Īt the moment, it's not looking good, "But we are still far from a final answer," he concludes.Ī version of this story was originally published in January 2016. When Thorne proposed his theory of stable wormholes in 1988 he called upon the physics community to help him determine if enough exotic matter could exist in the Universe to support the possibility of a wormhole. "Now it is an amazing fact that exotic matter can exist, thanks to weirdnesses in the laws of quantum physics," Thorne writes in his book The Science of Interstellar.Īnd this exotic matter has even been made in laboratories here on Earth, but in very tiny amounts. In 1988, theoretical physicist Kip Thorne - the science consultant and executive producer for the recent film Interstellar - used Einstein's equations of general relativity to predict the possibility of wormholes that would forever be open for space travel.īut in order to be traversable, these wormholes need some strange, exotic matter holding them open. This warping is what we colloquially call a wormhole, which theoretically would let something travel vast distances instantaneously, essentially enabling us to break the cosmic speed limit by traveling great distances in a very short amount of time. "The only viable way of breaking the light barrier may be through general relativity and the warping of space time," Kaku writes.
While special relativity wed mass and energy, general relativity wove space and time together. Since nothing with mass can travel faster than light, you can kiss interstellar travel goodbye - at least, in the classical sense of rocketships and flying.Īlthough Einstein trampled over our aspirations of deep-space roadtrips with his theory of special relativity, he gave us a new hope for interstellar travel with his general theory of relativity in 1915. Ironically, their paper laid the foundation for what today is called the EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) paradox, a paradox that describes this instantaneous communication of quantum entanglement - an integral part of some of the world's most cutting-edge technologies, like quantum cryptography.
In fact, in 1935, Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, attempted to disprove quantum theory with a thought experiment on what Einstein referred to as "spooky action at a distance". Einstein thought that this therefore disproved the quantum theory, since nothing can go faster than light," Kaku wrote. "If I jiggle one electron, the other electron 'senses' this vibration instantly, faster than the speed of light. Now, separate those two electrons so that they're hundreds or even thousands of light years apart, and they will keep this instant communication bridge open. It's called Cherenkov radiation, and it shows up as a blue glow inside of nuclear reactors, like in the image above. In fact, this light boom happens on a daily basis in facilities around the world - you can see it with your own eyes. So, in theory, if something travels faster than the speed of light, it should produce something like a "luminal boom". When objects travel faster than the speed of sound, they generate a sonic boom. While these do not disprove Einstein's theory, they give us insight into the peculiar behavior of light and the quantum realm. Since Einstein, physicists have found that certain entities can reach superluminal (that means "faster-than-light") speeds and still follow the cosmic rules laid down by special relativity.
(The reason particles of light, called photons, travel at light speeds is because they have no mass.) To do so would require an infinite amount of energy and, in the process, the object's mass would become infinite, which is impossible.
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