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Are there any simple "experiments" that can be done in a high school science lab that could demonstrate some sort of basic principals of wormholes or spacetime? Or sort of proving how long something would take to get through a wormhole or why you wouldn't be able to travel through them etc.

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Surely you can't be serious –  user2963 Mar 5 '12 at 19:36
@zephyr Ha, im not asking to create my own wormhole, more about somehow trying to demonstrate the science behind it... showing how it could be possible or why it couldn't... –  Cameron Mar 5 '12 at 19:40
cross-posted to TP.SE theoreticalphysics.stackexchange.com/q/1002/189 –  Qmechanic Mar 5 '12 at 22:18
There's nothing against you travelling through a stable wormhole. Few dangers, but they can be countered. –  Manishearth Mar 6 '12 at 9:51
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closed as not constructive by Qmechanic, Manishearth Jan 31 '13 at 9:18


1 Answer

My favorite explanation of something similar to a wormhole is this, from Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time





There's a bit more after this on dimensions, but it doesn't completely explain the issue (plus it uses some slightly wrong physics--it is, after all, a children's book)

You can do this explanation with a string. Then show them that a string (one-dimensional) had to be bent into a two-dimensional loopy thing.

Then, do the same thing with a piece of paper. Here, a 2D paper is bent into a 3D thing.

Now try to explain how this is possible in the real world--bending of 3D space into 4D spacetime in a loopy manner.

It would help if you explained the standard rock-in-a-rubber-sheet analogy of general relativity at first. Of course, I've seen this particular analogy lead to misconceptions/confusions frequently. But there's no way that I know of to explain it correctly without confusing the lot of them.

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