Practical use of Wormholes

Was thinking about possible uses for wormholes. Assume that the
current theory is correct and if you send 1kg though a wormhole, the
entry mouth increases by 1kg and the exit mouth decreases by 1kg, but
that the if an imbalance occurs, the wormhole will collapse. Mass
flow must therefore be kept balanced (say to less than 1kg).

Also, assume that the wormholes are Visser type, so that they are flat
faces with edges made up of high density negative matter. A mouth
could be a cube, or even 2-d shape.

Some of the obvious uses

- communication

This just requires firing a laser through the wormhole. The mass
balance requirement has little effect as the energy of light is tiny.
Also, you could fire beams in both directions, but probably
unnecessary.

Fibre optic cable could also be run through the wormholes, or other
network connection system.

It would make it much harder to police the internet. Atm, it is
possible in principle to cut under-sea cables. However, assuming
small wormholes are cheap, you could buy your internet connection from
lots of providers. The government wouldn't be able to shut down all
of them.

- Power transmission

Power transmission would also be improved. Wires could be sent
through wormholes.

This may require that you send some mass in the opposite direction to
balance the energy flow. If this is required, it would only require a
tiny amount of mass to balance the energy.

Power transmission would also allow solar systems that are much closer
the Sun without having complex beaming systems.

- transport of materials

Mass flows would have to kept equal. For industrial purposes, you
could pump liquids through a wormhole. By measuring the flow in both
directions, mass flow could be kept equal.

Also, in general industrial flow would be easier to keep masses
balanced, as they are regular.

When transporting between Earth and another planet, the Earth goods
are likely to have much higher value per kg. Thus sacrificial mass
would have to be sent from Earth in other to balance things.

- transport of people

If the balance requirement was < 1kg, a person would collapse the
wormhole if they even tried to move their hand through.

There would be a requirement to measure the mass flow (maybe the
wormhole control loop automatically tells mass flow, or perhaps an
additional system would be required).

Once this is done, there would need to be available mass that can be
used to compensate for people walking though. This could be in
multiple levels. A liquid could be pumped from one side to another
for fast reaction times, and then a metal block could be moved for
more long term averaging. In principle, there could be multiple
levels depending on the quality of balancing required.

It is possible that you could want to go through, but to many people
have walked through in the last hour and the system has completely
moved all of its mass to the same side as you.

I am not sure the best way to connect them up. You could arrange them
as a central location and sub-centres (i.e walking from a city on the
Moon to Paris would require that you walk to the main lunar station,
then to the main Earth station, then the European one, then the French
one and then the one in Paris). Alternatively, they could be
connected in a more free set of connections. You might need a map
built into your mobile to figure to navigate. This also helps with a
blocked wormhole due to to many people going through and all the mass
being used. If there are lots of connections, then you can find an
alternative route.

Also, depending on price, there might be some system to move people
quickly through the mouth itself.

- rocketry

Without the mass balance requirement, a wormhole would cause the
rocket equation to break down.

However, with the requirement for mass balance, there is still a
requirement to store "fuel" on the rocket. However, everything else
(except structure and payload) can left at the launch site.

The "fuel" is only required for its mass. Thus, mercury might be a
good choice as it has high density and is a liquid.

The base could suck the mercury back to the launch site as the rocket
fires to keep everything balanced.

The rocket itself would also be at the launch site. It would be
designed so the rocket exhaust would go through the wormhole mouth
without hitting the edges. When this exits the other mouth, it will
automatically cause it to move away due to conservation of momentum.
Weirdly, just going through the mouth is enough, even though there is
no physical connection between the thrust and the exit mouth.

Ideally, the rocket should have maximum specific impulse. The rocket
engine could use Hydrogen as propellent as any complexities with
storage would be at the launch site. Not sure the best way to heat it.

The hydrogen could be passed through piping that is kept hot with a
large power plant, at a reasonably high flow rate. This would
hopefully give good specific impulse while allowing high thrust.

I am not sure what would be best here. Obviously, once thrust is no
longer an issue, an ion propulsion system would give better specific
impulse.

In principle, rocket owners could rent the high thrust hydrogen system
for planet to orbit and then switch to the cheaper ion propulsion
system. By moving the mouths corresponding to a specific rocket to a
around, the main rocket could be time shared.

Eventually, most transport would be via the wormhole system, but
initially, rockets would be needed to place the wormholes at their
targets.

Also, rocket crews could work and 8 hour shift and spend the rest of
the time on a planet.

- Warfare

Would allow nuclear weapons to be deployed very easily. ICBMs would
be unncessary.

This might lead to research into detecting wormhole mouths.
Alternatively, it allows people live much further apart, so maybe
nukes would do less damage.

Biological warfare could also use the tech. Your wormhole mouth might
be equipped with some mechanism to prevent biological material passing
through.

Alternatively, the increased chances of the infection making it back
to the aggressor country might prevent them using it in the first
place.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Gravitational field of a portal some mass has passed
    ... mass of whatever enters it. ... object exits the wormhole. ... The exit end does not gain any mass, ... When the particle exits the other mouth, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Warp drive as stealth shield
    ... Thin-shell wormhole solutions of Einstein's equation ... exotic in the sense that its "mass" is negative (there are more ... exotic matter. ... The mouth the mass exits ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Practical use of Wormholes
    ... entry mouth increases by 1kg and the exit mouth decreases by 1kg, ... that the if an imbalance occurs, the wormhole will collapse. ... The mass ... requirement to store "fuel" on the rocket. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Formation of Closed Timelike Curves with Morris-Thorne wormholes
    ... Let mouth A be the stationary ... > to propagate outside the wormhole. ... Suppose we have a spacetime that has a wormhole, ... worldline joining C to C' for Han to traverse. ...
    (sci.physics.research)
  • Musings On Wormholes
    ... Okay, hypothesize your standard wormhole: ... mouth B increases the apparent mass of mouth A by x, ... gravitational field that will repel objects with positive mass. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
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