Would wormholes transmit gravity, if so how?

In summary, a wormhole would transmit gravity, if so how? Wormholes transmitting gravity would prevent them from being used as a perpetual motion device, generating increasingly more kinetic energy, the way they are in the video game "Portal", and since they would transmit matter, it would stand to reason that wormholes do transmit gravity, meaning that you could feel the strength of the gravitational field at mouth A when you're in the vicinity of mouth B.
  • #1
Gulli
96
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Would wormholes transmit gravity, if so how? Seeing as wormholes transmitting gravity would prevent them from being used as a perpetual motion device, generating increasingly more kinetic energy, the way they are in the video game "Portal", and since they would transmit matter, it would stand to reason that wormholes do transmit gravity, meaning that you could feel the strength of the gravitational field at mouth A when you're in the vicinity of mouth B.

But how would this work exactly? Would the field fall off according to the interior length of the wormhole (a useful wormhole has an interior length that's less than the distance between A and B in normal space)?

If so, what would happen if I did the following:

1) Open a wormhole with mouth A near a massive star's surface and mouth B at a distance from the star that's so far away that in normal space only 0.01% of the star's surface gravity remains.

2) I made the wormhole such that it's interior length is large enough that I do not travel backwards in time (to avoid opening that can of worms), but still shorter than the normal space distance between A and B, say half the length).

3) I then catapult a mass into the mouth at A with a speed that's just enough to overcome the gravitational field inside the wormhole (it falls from 100% at A to roughly 25% at B), so the mass stands still for a split second after it exits mouth B.

4) I then collapse the wormhole and leave the mass to fall back unto the star's surface.

Naively I would expect the mass to gather more kinetic energy (because it falls from 0% field strength at B to 100% field strength at A while it only overcame 75% of the field strength to get from A to B). Repeating the whole process would then heat the star with no effort, free energy. What am I missing here (does a wormhole "suck in" extra gravitons so the gravitational gradient inside the wormhole is ultimately equal to the one outside, the same as what happens when you make a shortcut in fluid dynamics?) or does this prove traversable wormholes don't exist?

P.S. alternatively, in step 4) I could collapse the wormhole, start an engine that's attached to the mass for a brief moment to overcome the last 0.01% of the gravitational field and fly away from the star, reaching the next star with less total energy consumption than it would have taken without using a wormhole. I could even construct gravity cannons using this method, hurling masses between two planets, collecting the energy of the surface impacts and use part of that energy to hurl new masses, generating net power in the process.
 
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  • #2
If you consider geometries that are static so that potential functions exist at all, I'd expect wormholes to have multi-valued potential functions.

So the good news is you can express the acceleration of gravity (relative to the static geometry) as the gradient of some potential function, the bad news is that if your path traverses the wormhole, the value of this function (energy) won't return to it's initial value but will depend on the winding number of how often the path goes through the wormhole.

It's hard to find a detailed reference on this, though.

Some of the ideas that lead to this conclusion are discussed in Cramer's Alternate View columns on wormholes, such as http://www.npl.washington.edu/av/altvw69.html

Basically, if an electromagnetic charge passes through a wormhole, Cramer's arguments shows that you expect it to drag electromagnetic field lines through it.

Similar arguments suggest that a mass dragged through a wormhole will behave similarly

Cramer said:
If a positive electric charge Q passes through a wormhole mouth, the electric lines of force radiating away from the charge must thread through the aperture of the wormhole. The net result is that the entrance wormhole mouth has lines of force radiating away from it, and the exit wormhole mouth has lines of force radiating toward it. In effect, the entrance mouth has now been given a positive electric charge Q, and the exit mouth acquires a corresponding negative charge -Q. Similarly, if a mass M passes through a wormhole mouth, the entrance mouth has its mass increased by M, and the exit mouth has its mass reduced by an amount -M.

If the path through the external space-time has a fixed gravitational potential difference, and the path through the wormhole itself has a potential difference that starts at zero (assuming that you start with a symmetrical wormhole - but ultimately depends on the history of what objects have passed through it and in which direction), it becomes pretty clear that integrating around a loop that passes through the wormhole isn't guaranteed to give a globally vanishing potential function / energy.

At least one semi-popular book claims otherwise, but I find the arguments raised by Cramer et al convincing.

Note that there is an applicable notion of energy to this particular circumstance though (due to the assumption that the space-time is static) and that giving some external object energy will cause the wormhole mouths to loose mass resulting in the applicable notion of total energy being conserved.
 
  • #3
Roger Penrose believes that gravitational signatures can even transit the big bang; that is, some gravitational characteristics from before the big bang can be found within CMBR...
 
  • #4
pervect said:
If the path through the external space-time has a fixed gravitational potential difference, and the path through the wormhole itself has a potential difference that starts at zero (assuming that you start with a symmetrical wormhole - but ultimately depends on the history of what objects have passed through it and in which direction), it becomes pretty clear that integrating around a loop that passes through the wormhole isn't guaranteed to give a globally vanishing potential function / energy.

At least one semi-popular book claims otherwise, but I find the arguments raised by Cramer et al convincing.

Note that there is an applicable notion of energy to this particular circumstance though (due to the assumption that the space-time is static) and that giving some external object energy will cause the wormhole mouths to loose mass resulting in the applicable notion of total energy being conserved.

So it would appear as generating free energy but it would really be tapping into the energy of the wormhole? Does this energy come from the device that is keeping the wormhole open (meaning it would take more energy to keep a wormhole open if heavy objects pass through it even though the radius of the wormhole does not change)? Does that imply that naturally occurring wormholes would collapse after a certain amount of mass has traveled through it? It does sound like a very elegant solution.
 
  • #5


I cannot provide a definitive answer to this hypothetical situation as we do not yet have a complete understanding of wormholes and their properties. However, I can provide some insights and potential explanations based on current theories and research.

Firstly, it is important to note that wormholes are still a theoretical concept and have not been observed or proven to exist. Therefore, any discussion about their properties and effects is purely speculative at this point.

That being said, according to current theories, wormholes do have the potential to transmit gravity. This is because gravity is a property of space-time and wormholes are essentially distortions in space-time. Thus, if an object with mass is present near one mouth of the wormhole, it would create a gravitational field that would be transmitted through the wormhole to the other mouth.

In your hypothetical scenario, the gravitational field inside the wormhole would indeed fall off according to its interior length. This means that the closer you are to one mouth of the wormhole, the stronger the gravitational field would be.

However, your proposed experiment of using a wormhole as a perpetual motion device may not work in reality. This is because there are other factors to consider, such as the energy required to create and maintain the wormhole and the effects of time dilation. Additionally, it is possible that the wormhole may not be stable enough to withstand the repeated use and collapse.

Furthermore, the concept of traversable wormholes (wormholes that can be used for travel) is still highly theoretical and there are many unanswered questions and challenges to overcome. Therefore, it is not yet clear if such wormholes would actually exist and if they would have the properties that you have described.

In conclusion, while wormholes do have the potential to transmit gravity, their properties and effects are still largely unknown and require further research and understanding. It is important to approach discussions about wormholes with caution and to remember that they are still a highly theoretical concept.
 

1. Would wormholes transmit gravity?

The concept of wormholes, or tunnels through space-time, is still largely theoretical and there is currently no empirical evidence to suggest that they exist. However, according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, objects with mass do have an effect on the curvature of space-time, which could potentially influence the behavior of nearby objects, including gravity.

2. How would wormholes transmit gravity?

If wormholes do exist and have an impact on the curvature of space-time, they could potentially transmit gravity in a similar way to how other massive objects, like planets and stars, affect the space-time fabric. However, the exact mechanism of how this would occur is still unknown and would require further research and study.

3. Are there any studies or experiments that have been done on this topic?

While there have been many theoretical studies and mathematical models proposed regarding the concept of wormholes and their potential effects on gravity, there have been no direct experiments conducted to test this hypothesis. Due to the extreme conditions required for wormholes to exist, it is currently not feasible to create or observe them in a laboratory setting.

4. Could wormholes be used to manipulate gravity?

There is currently no evidence to suggest that wormholes could be used to manipulate gravity in any way. While they may have an impact on the curvature of space-time, it is not clear if this could be harnessed for practical purposes. Additionally, any attempts to manipulate gravity would require a deep understanding of the underlying physics, which is still being studied and explored.

5. What are the implications of wormholes transmitting gravity?

If wormholes do exist and transmit gravity, it could have significant implications for our understanding of the universe and its underlying principles. It could also open up new possibilities for space travel and exploration, as well as help us better understand the behavior of gravity in extreme conditions. However, more research and evidence is needed to fully explore these implications.

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