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Wormholes and FTL travel: Is science fiction and science edging closer together?

by Rick Badman

Created on: May 16, 2009

According to the laws of hyperlight physics, the energy used to hyperacclerate a craft beyond the speed of light is less than the energy used for propulsion if the crafts travel the same distance. That means it may take less energy to reach a star 1000 light-years away at 100,000 times the speed of lght when repulsion-drive is used than for a craft flying at 99% of the speed of light which used conventional propulsion systems to reach the star in a little over 1000 years instead of less than four days unless the craft coasts after achieving 99% of the speed of light.

Wormholes are not the crushing phenomenon many scientists believe they are. If the accelerated energy mass surrounding an object or person passing through a wormhole is greater than the mass of the wormhole, a linear repulsive reaction should occur in which the object or person is accelerated and the mass should become greater than the wormhole's mass.

Wormholes have been theorized as being short-cuts in space that allow crafts to travel beyond the speed of light as far as distance is concerned. But none of the energy or the craft exceeds the speed of light. Field acceleration stations will be similar to wormholes in that they would use the energy of a planet or star to produce accleration fields that should increase the velocity of a craft that passes through it. Wormholes are mainly uncontrollable while field acceleration stations will be used to accelerate crafts to beyond the speed of light or at least beyond the speed of the craft passing though them. Those that are placed in the solar system will allow both crafts and people to travel to the stars.

For a person, an energy envelope would cover him and the wormhole would recognize him as energy instead of a solid mass. This is similar to how a transporter may work. A person would step into a teleportation chamber or through a portal and a field of energy would surround him. The transporter would accelerate the person and transmit him like a signal to the next transporter. If there is no receiver, it may be more difficult to maintain structural integrity of the person. But if the tranmission can be controlled well, the teleportation signal might last for a certain length of time and end. That would be where the person using the transporter would end up.

In 1947 shortly after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, someone suggested that eventually we would have unlimited speed. He believed it would happen during his liftetime. After 62 years, we haven't reached 1% of the speed of light. But once repulsion-drive and controllable wormholes or field acceleration stations are a reality, traveling beyond the speed of light or through wormholes will be commonplace.

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