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TSS独家报道:科学家提出寻找虫洞的方法,为星际旅行提供新理论

TSS EXCLUSIVE: Scientists Propose Ways To Find Wormholes That Can Theoretically Create Shortcuts For Journeys Across The Universe

by Rhodilee Jean Dolor

在对“如何缩短星际旅行的时间”这一问题的探讨中,一些研究人员提出了寻找虫洞的方法,这一方法在理论上可以把太空旅行者们送到任意地方,不论它们多么遥远隐蔽。

Amid efforts to develop technology-based solutions that can shorten travel time between Earth and the worlds beyond, researchers propose ways to find wormholes that can theoretically allow space travelers to reach far-flung corners of the universe.

虫洞是什么?
What Are Wormholes?

虫洞是一种存在于理论中的空间通道,它有两个出入口,由一个“喉咙”连接,太空旅行者可以通过喉咙在两个出入口间飞行。在科幻小说中,虫洞通常被描述为一种能大幅缩短太空旅行时间、使时间旅行成为可能的手段。

A wormhole is a theoretical passageway with two mouths connected by a “throat” that serves as a path for a traveler to traverse to another point. The idea is often portrayed in science fiction as a means to significantly shorten the duration of space travel and make time travel possible.

Christopher Nolan 2014年的电影《星际穿越》(Interstellar)讲述了宇航员通过虫洞寻找人类可居住的新的星球的故事。Michael Crichton 1999年发表的小说《时间线》(Timeline)中的一大特色也是可以进行时空穿梭的虫洞。

Christopher Nolan’s 2014 “Interstellar” movie depicted astronauts going through a wormhole in their quest to find a new habitable world for humanity. Michael Crichton’s 1999 novel “Timeline” also featured traversable wormholes for time travel.

科学家们还没有找到确凿的证据证明虫洞的存在,但是理论上虫洞和黑洞很像。比如,虫洞和黑洞都有强大的引力。

Scientists have not yet found conclusive evidence that they exist, but wormholes resemble black holes. For one, both wormhole and blackhole have powerful gravitational pulls. 

但两者的不同之处在于,进入黑洞的物体会被困在那里,而进入虫洞的物体可以穿过虫洞到达另一边。

What makes the two different is that objects that get into a black hole are trapped there, while things that enter a wormhole can traverse through it to the other side. 

寻找隐秘的虫洞
Search For The Elusive Wormhole

在假设虫洞确实存在的情况下,科学家们一直在寻找找到它们的方法。在2020年11月发表在《皇家天文学会月刊》(Monthly notice of the Royal Astronomical Society)上的一项研究报告中,研究人员声称,虫洞可能存在于非常明亮的星系的中心。

If wormholes do exist, scientists have been looking for ways to find them. In a study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in November 2020, researchers claimed that wormholes possibly exist at the center of very bright galaxies. 

来自Pulkovo的俄罗斯科学院中央天文台的Mikhail Piotrovich和他的同事称,一种被称为活动星系核(AGN)的存在于星系中心的致密区域可能是虫洞的入口。AGN是超大质量的黑洞,当它们吞噬周围的物质时,会产生出比我们银河系更高的辐射。

Mikhail Piotrovich, from the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, and colleagues said that a compact region at the center of a galaxy known as active galactic nuclei (AGN) could be the mouths of wormholes. AGNs are supermassive black holes that release more radiation than our own Milky Way as they consume matter around them. 

研究人员认为,如果从虫洞一个入口进入的物质会从另一个入口离开,那么进入虫洞这个入口的物质会与同时从另一个入口进入的物质相撞。这是因为,由于虫洞强大的引力场,落入其中的物质可能会以极快的速度移动。

If things that enter one mouth of a wormhole would go out of its other mouth, the researchers argued that matter that entered one mouth of the wormhole would slam into matter that simultaneously got in through the other mouth. This is so because matter that falls into the mouth of a supermassive wormhole would likely travel extremely fast due to the powerful gravitational field. 

研究人还认为,碰撞会产生一个等离子体球体并导致它以接近光速的速度膨胀到虫洞的两个口处。研究人员将这种爆发与AGN爆发进行了比较(AGN通常被称为吸积盘的等离子体环包围着)。

The researchers believe that the collision would cause spheres of plasma to expand both wormhole mouths at nearly the speed of light. The researchers compared the outburst with those from AGNs, which are often surrounded by rings of plasma known as accretion disks.

Piotrovich和他的同事说,观测AGN产生的伽马辐射可以引导科学家找到隐秘的虫洞。

Piotrovich and colleagues said that observing the gamma radiation produced by AGNs could lead scientists to the elusive wormholes. 

“这项工作建立在一个基本假设上,活动星系核(AGN)是虫洞口,而不是超大质量黑洞,”天文学家在他们的研究中写道。“在一些相当普遍的假设下,这样的虫洞可能因虫洞内吸积流碰撞而发射伽马射线。这种射线具有独特的光谱,与AGN的喷流或吸积盘的光谱大不相同。这种辐射的观测数据可以作为虫洞存在的证据。”

“The underlying hypothesis of this work is that the active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are wormhole mouths rather than supermassive black holes,” the astronomers wrote in their study. “Under some – quite general – assumptions such wormholes may emit gamma radiation as a result of a collision of accreting flows inside the wormholes. This radiation has a distinctive spectrum much different from those of jets or accretion discs of AGNs. An observation of such radiation would serve as evidence of the existence of wormholes.”

其他科学家在更早的研究中也尝试过寻找时空通道。在2019年发表在《物理评论D》(Physical Review D)杂志上的一项研究报告中,研究人员提出,恒星围绕超大质量黑洞进行的微小但怪异的运动可以帮助探测虫洞。

Earlier works by other scientists also attempted to find the theoretical spacetime bridge. In a 2019 study published in the journal Physical Review D, researchers suggested that the slight but strange movements of stars around supermassive black holes can help detect wormholes. 

在这项研究中,布法罗大学艺术与科学学院的宇宙学家Dejan Stojkovic和同事们试图于在人马座A*(银河系中心的超大质量黑洞)的周围发现虫洞。

For the study, cosmologist Dejan Stojkovic, from the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, and colleagues focused on spotting a wormhole around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

研究人员认为该区域是寻找虫洞的绝佳场所,因为虫洞需要极大的引力才能形成和维持。而人马座A*的引力非常强烈,当附近恒星太靠近黑洞时,它们发出的光都会被扭曲。

The researchers think that the region is a good place for hunting wormholes because wormholes require extreme gravitational conditions. The gravitational pull of Sagittarius A* happens to be so intense it warps lights from nearby stars when they get too close to the black hole. 

Stojkovic和他的同事们认为,如果人马座A*存在虫洞,那么附近的恒星就会受到隧道另一边恒星的引力的影响。基于这一设想,研究人员表示,通过寻找人马座a *附近恒星的正常轨道的微小偏差,将有可能探测到虫洞的存在。

Stojkovic and colleagues think that if a wormhole exists at Sagittarius A*, the nearby stars would be affected by the gravitational pull of the stars at the other side of the tunnel. Based on this concept, the researchers said that it would be possible to detect the presence of a wormhole by looking for slight deviations in the regular orbit of stars near Sagittarius A*. 

更具体地说,他们认为科学家可以通过寻找环绕人马座A*的S2星的轨道上的扰动来发现虫洞。

More specifically, they suggested that scientists may find a wormhole by looking for perturbation in the path of the S2 star that orbits Sagittarius A*.

“如果一个虫洞平滑地连接了两个不同的时空,那么通量就不能在任何一个空间中单独守恒。因此,在一个空间虫洞附近存在的物体,一定会受到在另一个空间存在的物体的影响,”研究人员在他们的研究报告中写道。

“If a wormhole smoothly connects two different spacetimes, then the flux cannot be separately conserved in any of these spaces individually. Then objects propagating in the vicinity of a wormhole in one space must feel the influence of objects propagating in the other space,” the researchers wrote in their study

“通过研究银河系中心黑洞周围恒星的轨道,我们很快就能知道这个黑洞是否是可穿越的虫洞。”

“By studying the orbits of stars around the black hole at the center of our galaxy, we could soon tell if this black hole harbors a traversable wormhole.”

寻找虫洞的意义
Significance of Finding Wormholes

虽然电影和书籍把虫洞描绘成空间或时间两点之间的桥梁,但找到虫洞存在的证据并不一定意味着瞬时空间旅行和时间旅行时代的开始。

Although movies and books portray wormholes as a bridge between two points in space or time, finding proof of wormholes’ existence does not necessarily mean the start of an era for instantaneous space journeys and time travel. 

英国宇宙学家Stephen  Hawking认为,不可能用虫洞作为时间机器。Stojkovic还解释了虫洞不能用作太空旅行的通到的原因。

British cosmologist Stephen Hawking did not think it possible to use a wormhole as a time machine. Stojkovic also explained why wormholes would not serve as a passageway for travelers. 

“即使虫洞是可以穿越的,人类和宇宙飞船也很可能无法穿越。”他说道:“实际上,你需要一种负能量源来维持虫洞始终是开放的,而我们不知道如何做到这一点。要创造一个稳定的巨大虫洞,你需要一些“魔法”。”

“Even if a wormhole is traversable, people and spaceships most likely aren’t going to be passing through,” he said. “Realistically, you would need a source of negative energy to keep the wormhole open, and we don’t know how to do that. To create a huge wormhole that’s stable, you need some magic.”

尽管研究人员热衷于寻找虫洞,物理学家Kip Thorne(相对论、黑洞和虫洞方面的权威之一)长期以来一直认为,通过虫洞旅行的想法可能只是人类想象的幻想。

Despite researchers’ enthusiasm over finding wormholes, physicist Kip Thorne, one of the leading authorities on relativity, black holes, and wormholes, has long suggested that the idea of traveling through wormholes could be just a figment of humanity’s imagination. 

“有非常显著的迹象表明,人类可以通过的虫洞并不符合物理法则,”他说,“这很可悲,很不幸,但这就是事实。”

“There are very strong indications that wormholes that a human could travel through are forbidden by the laws of physics,” he said. “That’s sad, that’s unfortunate, but that’s the direction in which things are pointing.”

翻译:墨淞凌@STARSET_Mirror翻译组
审校:CDN@STARSET_Mirror翻译组

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