Re:Magnetic wormhole created for first time
by logfromblammo on Thursday September 03, 2015 @02:24PM
(#10166681)
It is disingenuous to call it a wormhole. It would be more accurate to call it a shielded conductor of magnetic field lines.
This is no more a wormhole for magnetism than a coaxial cable is a wormhole for RF signals.
Re:Magnetic wormhole created for first time
by themartorana on Thursday September 03, 2015 @09:57PM
(#10168476)
Well, minus that whole wire thing.
Re:Magnetic wormhole created for first time
by kbenson on Thursday September 03, 2015 @12:43PM
(#10165940)
When this was reported there the other week (through some summary article), it was unclear to me. I was looking, because my first thought was that if it's actually skipping that space, and if it's instantaneous, isn't that FTL communication? You could encode information in magnetic fluctuations.
Re:Magnetic wormhole created for first time
by yoha on Thursday September 03, 2015 @01:46PM
(#10166422)
Indeed. The light speed limit is only valid when moving through space. If you bypass it, nothing actually stops it from having FTL (Faster Than Light) communications/travel.
To understand wormholes or portals from the Valve game, you can think of our 3D universe as a 2D sheet of paper. You cannot move along the sheet of paper faster than light; however, if you bend the piece of paper, you can make it so that two different points on the sheet touch.
A wormhole is just this pair of points, and finding a way to switch between the two connected pieces of paper. Since those two points are actually in the same location, traveling from one to another should be instantaneous.
It's not a shortcut in the speed-of-light sense, but it does appear to change the topology of space from the field's perspective.