B How many nuclear weapons are needed to make a wormhole?

[Dave Gungan]

TL;DR Summary

I was wondering how much energy is needed to make a wormhole in terms of either nuclear weapons, or maybe annihilation of matter or/and antimatter via e=mc^2.

Hi guys!

After many years of lurking quietly I finally have a question that I'd like to know, please.

I'd like to know how much energy is needed to make a wormhole in terms of our current nuclear weapons, or how much mass is needed to turn into pure energy, maybe via antimatter annihilation with e=mc^2. Or do I not understand how they're made at all?

I imagine in terms of nukes it would take trillions and trillions? or mass annihilation on the scale of a whole galaxy turned into energy.

(FYI my education is almost completed a degee in physics/maths/electronics about 30 years ago, and read about the subjects for years ever since. Also I'm dyslexic so sorry for related typos, misreading and spelling. But weirdly I make up for it in these subjects so I'd not change a thing.)

Lastly, since this is my 1st and maybe only post, can I thank people like the amazing PeterD, phinds, Ibix, Bandersnatch, Orodruin, kimbyd, PeroK, robphy, Nugatory, Dale, Orodruin, vanhees71, and many more. You guys are so great to read your post, and I feel so small and dumb when reading your replies. Thanks so much for your input here.

Cheers in advance guys!

/Dave

 

[Dale]

It is not energy that is needed, it is exotic matter. To build a wormhole you need a form of matter that has a negative energy density. Such matter has never been found, and cannot be generated simply by using a bunch of nukes.

 

[DrJohn]

Once the first one is completed and shown to operate, we will have a figure to work with.

But until then, nobody knows.

 

[mitchell porter]

The closest thing to a recipe for a wormhole might be found in Maldacena et al, section 8. Following the recipe of Maldacena and Susskind's ER=EPR paper, you make a wormhole by getting many EPR pairs (pairs of entangled particles), then separating the members of each pair into two groups and letting them form into black holes. The wormhole is then the entangled black holes... For the traversable wormholes in Maldacena et al, you need to entangle near-extremal black holes, with very high charge and spin relative to their mass. Unfortunately, it takes longer to pass through these wormholes, than it does to just travel through space the normal way (something which I think was foreseen in Greg Egan's novel Diaspora).

 

[Dave Gungan]

It is not energy that is needed, it is exotic matter.

Thank you, then I assume I'm wrong in my long belief that exotic matter was more about making stable traversable wormholes, where as I more meant the energy required to, what I thought of as to, warp spcetime enough to create 2 points in space which create an instantanious but unstable "wormhole". I'm not meaning star trekky type stuff here btw.

 

[Dale]

assume I'm wrong in my long belief that exotic matter was more about making stable traversable wormholes

No, you are not wrong. I thought that is what you were asking about.

Regarding non-traversable wormholes, I don’t know about that. I haven’t looked into them. Maybe one of the other regulars will know

 

[Dave Gungan]

It is not energy that is needed, it is exotic matter. To build a wormhole you need a form of matter that has a negative energy density. Such matter has never been found, and cannot be generated simply by using a bunch of nukes.

Thank you this is now getting to exactly what I really imagined for this situation...

Bob and Alice are separated by a set distance in space, which doesn't really matter for now. They synchronously release a large amount of energy. WIll this have the potential to create, what I'll now call, an Einstein–Rosen bridge, rather than "wormhole", which sounds too sci-fi-ish.

Reworded Question thanks to Dale's valuable input as always, bless him.

Please can I have help calculating the energy required to bend spacetime enough for Alice and Bob (seperated by a distance), to create a classic Einstein–Rosen bridge, or very close to it.

Or is my understanding so far, incorrect please?

Note: It might be handy to know that I'm half way through the utterly amazing Taylor and Wheeler, which made me realize I still don't know this subject as well as I want to.

 

[Dave Gungan]

The closest thing to a recipe...

Thank you for the very interesting news related to what I asked. Thats a fascinating read as an alternative to what I was thinking.

I so love Susskind and his Stanford Lecture series. I rewatch them over and over in bed to hope I digest everything the genuis says. And the man rocks those BB shorts so well!

 

[Dave Gungan]

My working so far...

(I'll update this single post as I go, if I may please)

Edit #1: I guess I need some of Maxwells stuff to find how energy can bend spacetime? Which was then leads to the EFE, which I'll assume are above me, although I'd like to try and follow this through.

 

[berkeman]

I guess I need some of Maxwells stuff

What? Maxwell stuff? Why is the thread in the technical forums (even at the "B" level)? Should it be moved to the SciFi forum maybe? Thread is closed temporarily for Moderation...

 

[PeterDonis]

Bob and Alice are separated by a set distance in space, which doesn't really matter for now. They synchronously release a large amount of energy. WIll this have the potential to create, what I'll now call, an Einstein–Rosen bridge

No. The Einstein-Rosen bridge is only present in a maximally extended black hole spacetime, where the layman's translation of "maximally extended" is "can never actually happen because it's only an idealized mathematical model, not something that could ever actually be made in the real universe". The problem is that the maximally extended black hole spacetime is literally vacuum everywhere--there is no stress-energy present at all, anywhere, for all time, in the entire spacetime geometry. So there's no way to make such a geometry. Obviously you can't make it by releasing a bunch of energy since that obviously means you have stress-energy present, which "breaks" the whole concept.

(Note that, since you commented about the Einstein Field Equation, that the above is what the Einstein Field Equation says.)

 

[PeterDonis]

And with my latest response, the OP question has been answered and the thread can remain closed.