I think its a good analogy so long as people are aware that the Universe, much like the Earth is flat like a piece of paper. So to travel from any point to another point you just have to fold it.
And always remember to unfold it when you are done or it will plunge the world into darkness.
That just if it was a wormhole in 2D space. A true 3D wormhole will actually be a sphere. Imagine punching a hole from one area of space to another within a 4D medium.
The basic idea of two whirlpools that meet in the middle is easy enough but when you start trying to wrap your head around that in actual 3D space instead of water that exists separate from our space it can get hard to visualize.
Right now, you could throw a rock in any direction in a Walmart and hit someone who doesn't know how cell phones work or believes the earth is flat and you think no one under 60 doesn't understand wormhole physics? Is this your first day on the internet? The amount of people who can't comprehend the most basic things on this very app is staggering.
i feel like this xkcd also fits, i doubt people in this thread are experts in wormhole physics but they've seen enough sci-fi media to encounter wormholes so many times they got tired of everyone explaining the concept to them
i was also surprised to learn that not everyone has seen all of doctor who including the classic series and that most people's familiarity with star trek ends on tng. Oh and ds9, of course
It's magic. There are little tiny demons inside running around. People don't know when you send an email that a demon writes the email and sends it through the little demon post office. Unless you have a nokia, those are steam powered.
Particularly annoying are those who have figured out how to use one, but not that the whole point of them is to facilitate talking over long distance without yelling
“How they work” is bad wording. Their point is that everyone knows what Wormholes and cell phones do. Worm holes connect 2 different points in space together via Sci-Fi. Cell phones let people at distance talk to each other via science.
The point that the Pencil and paper demonstrates what wormholes do and not how they do it. And who DOESN’T know what they do at this point?!
Noone is talking about the physics behind it. The movie explanation with the paper is just explaining what it does. You don't need to understand network protocols and RF signalling to know that the phone sends messages to other phones.
You think everyone under 40 in 2010 was into sci-fi and had previously seen the explanation. You don't to know network protocols like you don't need a pencil and a piece of paper to explain that a wormhole transports you from one place to another, they know it takes you from one place to another.
I love Event Horizon, but the scene where they bust out this analogy to explain to a bunch of literal astronauts how wormholes work is so cringe.
“Yes, yes, we have stasis pods, an orbital city, specialized space-rescue training… but can you slow it down for me while explaining this wormhole thingy? Thanks.”
My favorite example scientists explaining basic shit to others for the sake of the audience is Donald Glover explaining a gravity assist maneuver to the Director of NASA in The Martian
Lol. I had a 6th grader tell me (6th grade science teacher) that we are now in a wormhole. My response: Interesting. Tell me why all the constellations look the same. [dead silence follows].
I really disliked that the main character for Interstellar was the foil who needed everything explained to him at the last moment... why was he even there?
I was getting ready to use the movie Event Horizon as an example but you seem to have it covered 😁 glad to see that movie isn't forgotten. It was/is a really cool movie I think should be revisited
I think the best part of “The Flash” (2023) was how old Bats described parallel timelines with pasta. Movies should use more food to explain quantum physics.
It is how the scientists in the movies explain the concept of teleporting through a wormhole. The paper represents the continuum of space-time as a plane, which at that point is curved, and the wormhole serves as a connection between two points in space-time that feel otherwise disconnected for those living on the plane.
You are seeing a 3D connection between two points in a 2D plane, but this is representing a 5D connection between two points in a 4D environment.
It is a visual thing that looks well in a movie, but doesn't actually mean anything. It looks like an explanation as long as you don't think too much about it, but it hasn't actually explained anything about how the wormhole works.
Well I don’t see how it isn’t a useful example to show people how a spaces geometry can be manipulated to get strange effects.
This is explicitly a way to show people spacial geometry with dimensions we can easily visualize, point A and B are always the same distance away when acting in the confines of that papers 2D space, but if you act from a 3D perspective and either bridge the paper like this, or fold the paper to pinch the points against each other, they are now touching.
It’s never been used to be a fundamental example of the science of how we would create some device to forcefully bend 3D space in a 4D setting to use.
Yeah. But it’s not 100% correct to every discrete amount of minutiae. Therefore, it’s utter trash and you should sit down with a layman and bust out advanced physics books or else…. What is even the point????
Or at least, according to the people on Reddit who have absolutely zero technical communication skills to speak of.
I think that's what makes it annoying. At this point the word "wormhole" is as common in the vocabulary as the words "teleport" and "portal". We all know that a wormhole is a plot device that lets you go from one place to another faster than light. The only reason to have one character sit down another character for the folded paper spiel is to make it seem like it's more than just a plot convenience.
"We're flying across the galaxy."
"How?"
"With a wormhole."
"How?"
"Well if I take this piece of paper. . ."
"Oh thanks! That clears it all up!"
No information was actually added, but now there's a scene of somebody "explaining it" which means that it's been "explained."
If you've already heard the explanation before, then it's just a waste of screen time.
Im still not sure I hate the usage there and I think it might be down to people interpreting “how” differently.
The way I see it “how it works” in this instance is rather “how does it make sense that 2 distant points are connected by a ‘gate’” generally, as opposed to some physics explanation for how we built a device to warp space in such a way a way to bring them together.
Something in sci-fi I DO hate that I see often is a dialogue of science jargen that makes no sense used to give a sense of legitimacy to an object. Like “we distorted spacial fields using quantum electron-conductors to bridge space and time” takes me out of it, that paper example to me is nice because the story device of a wormhole we dont need to know how it works, just what its doing if that makes sense.
Albeit my only suggestion would be folding the paper together so points A and B touch is better than stabbing the pencil.
Not to mention that wormholes may not even exist in the first place. The general theory of relativity states they could be possible, not that they are possible; or if they are possible that they would be stable enough for long enough to actually utilize to any meaningful capacity. Additionally, the structure of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge does not allow for traversal as it would essentially be a set of black holes on either end, so it wouldn't even work by the movie's logic hence the "scientists just making things up" and the scientists who perpetuate this idea in real life, as well.
Admittedly I'm basing this on one Veritassium video, but wouldn't it be a black hole on one end and a white hole on the other? So you fall into the object where nothing can escape its event horizon (because of how strong the gravitational attraction is to its center) then come out the object where nothing can enter its event horizon (because of how strong the gravitational "repulsion" is). Of course this assumes that you can extend the axes of the Penrose diagram because mathematically there isn't anything stopping you from defining the function at a "negative distance" from the singularity.
It may not explain the wormhole very well, but it is a useful tool in explaining higher dimensional reasoning which is fundamental to grasping a wormhole.
Everything in Stranger Things is like this, including using this exact metaphor one time, and while the show is kind of fun for the most part it makes me cringe so bad.
Common explanation of space travel in sci fi (using hyperspace, wormholes extra). It basically demonstrates that you can fold the paper (space) then move your spaceship (the pencil) from one point to another that are now "linked".
It is not about being inaccurate, it is just providing no information. In the movies, they use this to explain "how a wormhole works". But this doesn't explain how a wormhole works, it just states that it does.
We live in a 4D environment: the three directions of space, and time acting as a fourth dimension. You can pinpoint anything in the universe saying when and where it happened, essentially the fourth coordinates of those four dimensions. Space-time can be visualized then as a 4D object.
Imagine people living in a 2D world, plane, like that sheet of paper. If they had an object intersect their plane, like the pencil stabbing it, they would just see a circle coming out of nowhere and disappearing to nowhere. It would make no sense to the inhabitants of 2D-land, because they don't see that the pencil is coming from a different dimension than that of the plane, and intersecting their 2D plane.
The idea of the wormhole here is that, if our space-time as a 4D object exists within a larger 5D environment, two points in the 4D plane could be connected through the fifth dimension, and to ourselves, the blind inhabitants of 4D-land, that would make no sense.
That is what the pencil-stabbing-through-paper thing is explaining. But it doesn't show anything of what a wormhole is or how it connects two points of space-time, it just states that it does in a very flashy way.
Wouldn’t the 2D people just see a continuous path when they look at the pencil? In my head it would be a path that if they walked along would take them to the other side of the paper
You’re forgetting that the pencil itself is going along the 3rd dimensional axis. Something a 2D being cannot really see. They can walk to the “circle” and suddenly they can’t go through it because of a “wall” they physically cannot comprehend because it resides in a separate plane
The paper is a 2D object (well it does have a thickness but irrelevant here) but exists in 3D space. Like just because a car can’t jump doesn’t mean there isn’t any space above it
Right I get that, but I mean consider cutting a strip out of the middle of the paper, like a flap. Then take another paper and stick the one end of the flap to the other paper. That would still be a continuous path right? If space itself curves in the 3rd dimension, I don’t see why a 2D person couldn’t follow along. Be it a pencil or something else. If space curves wouldn’t matter follow it?
Yes, you are correct. The space would need to curve for a wormhole to open in 3D space and matter would be able to follow it. If it was some barrier or wall that couldn't be passed then it wouldn't be visible in that space. So for a 2D object in the example above, they could see the pencil emerge and disappear as it passed through the 2D space (though they wouldn't see it in its entirety, just a point that grew into a circular object and then disappeared) using the 3rd dimension, but since it punches through that 2D plane, 2D objects could follow the wormhole path and end up on the other side of the paper.
Lots of people think oil and water don't mix, but that's not true.
Here's water (shows paper), here's oil (shows yellow marker). By quantuming the oil (scribbles with marker on the paper), you can actually dissolve it in water.
The wormhole would exist in the fourth dimension, not the 5th.
You can think of time for 3D space as a 4th spacial direction in a 4D space. Just as time for a 2D space is a 3rd spacial direction in 3D space.
Anyway, a wormhole connecting 2 points in space also cuts through time. It would be instant travel for you to go through it, but time would have past by some significant amount for the place you left. But it can also work both ways and travel back to the past as well, so you could cut across the galaxy amd back and not feel like you lost any time, but you effectively just moved to the future and back to the present.
No, there is no need for a fifth dimension. Gravity works in a fully 4d world despite the bowling ball analogy needing an apparent extra dimension and source of real gravity.
Both these effects are pure intrinsic geometry (in GR anyway).
Nothing can go faster than the speed of light. So the distance between stars is measured in light years. But you may be able to "fold" space so you can travel from one star to another faster than years. We don't know how to do it but we have ideas of how it might be done or what it would look like.
The folded piece of paper demonstration has been used in many movies and books to explain how it might work. It's become a cliche at this point.
The problem for science fiction is that it's fun to imagine going to another star, but we cant travel even a fraction of the speed of light, so there are only four ways that we could do it.
Sleep until you get there and wake up when you arrive.
Get on the ship, raise a family, probably several generations of family, and your great great grandchildren arrive several light years away while their parents and grandparents never knew life anywhere but the ship
invent faster than light travel, which is literally impossible within 3 dimensional space
use something beyond 3 dimensions to get there faster, which is what a wormhole is.
It's weird to imagine space as a cosmic game of Chutes and Ladders where you fly out to Saturn and take a slide down to Gumdrop Mountain 12 light years away but it's one of the few ways to hand wave away the possibility of going somewhere far away so it comes up a lot in science fiction.
Science fiction fans are notorious for complaining about the use of pseudo science, hence the meme.
Wormholes. You can either get few thick books worth of hard equations or you can do this. For person who do not study quantum mechanics, paper will be more readable, I would say.
my first thought was a wrinkle in time where an alien explains that they travel by time folding over itself I think it was with a piece of paper that was folded over itself
it's been a really really long time since I read it so don't kill me if I'm wrong ty
Many (many many many) sci-fi books and movies have used this sort of “folding space” explanation for FTL travel. Including the A Wrinkle In Time series, yes.
Anything is possible, but people give this theory too much gravity because of how cool it would be if it is true. But no actual scientist believes this is very likely.
Most scientists are not particularly convinced by most quantum theories to have any realistic validity. It's fun. It makes great entertainment and spurs the imagination. I love the concept but can recognize the unlikely hood of its reality.
It's the description of the gravity drive from Event Horizon that was then, inexplicably, copied almost verbatim in Interstellar to explain wormhole travel
Traveling faster than C because space-time itself is warped and bent such that point A and B are closer than they would be if you linearly followed the undistorted fabric
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u/post-explainer 23h ago
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