Wormholes
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins of the idea that there might be shortcuts between galaxies and the challenges when proving these are not just unlikely but impossible.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the tantalising idea that there are shortcuts between distant galaxies, somewhere out there in the universe. The idea emerged in the context of Einstein's theories and the challenge has been not so much to prove their unlikely existence as to show why they ought to be impossible. The universe would have to folded back on itself in places, and there would have to be something to make the wormholes and then to keep them open. But is there anywhere in the vast universe like that? Could there be holes that we or more advanced civilisations might travel through, from one galaxy to another and, if not, why not?
With
Toby Wiseman
Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College London
Katy Clough
Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Queen Mary, University of London
And
Andrew Pontzen
Professor of Cosmology at Durham University
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Reading list:
Jim Al-Khalili, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines (Taylor & Francis, 1999)
Andrew Pontzen, The Universe in a Box: Simulations and the Quest to Code the Cosmos (Riverhead Books, 2023)
Claudia de Rham, The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity (Princeton University Press, 2024)
Carl Sagan, Contact (Simon and Schuster, 1985)
Kip Thorne, Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy (W. W. Norton & Company, 1994)
Kip Thorne, Science of Interstellar (W. W. Norton & Company, 2014)
Matt Visser, Lorentzian Wormholes: From Einstein to Hawking (American Institute of Physics Melville, NY, 1996)
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of Queen Mary, University of London
of Durham University
of Imperial College, University of London
Broadcasts
- Thu 26 Sep 2024 09:00成人快手 Radio 4
- Sun 29 Sep 2024 23:00成人快手 Radio 4
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