Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 4/10/2008

Question
QUESTION: Hi Jayen! Something tells me you're a real cosmology buff/expert. Some people take a keen interest past the books, like Michiu Kaku. My question, I guess, has more than one answer, because it's theory, but I'd like your thoughts. Wormhole Theory- the idea that 2 Black Holes can have a sore of passageway between them, that shifts it's ends through space-time, if I understand it, although its unclear. First, how can 2 fixed points, the Black hole themselves, shift locations, as the ends of the "tunnel"? I mean, either they are at Point A and B, or they're not. How can they "move"? And my other, more basic question is: How can 2 points, (the Black Holes), on opposite sides of a galaxy or opposite sides of a UNIVERSE, have a "connection" betwwen them, without having to go through the "space" and "time" between them? I Know, these are HEAVY questions, but I was born with a curious mind, and still have one. Thanks in advance, if you can shed any light on my understanding.

ANSWER: Mike! we are indeed birds of the same feather!
I believe in nurturing :-
1 - An unconditional thirst for knowledge.
2 - Utter shamelessness in acknowledging that one "does not know"!

If one has these two properties, on advances in life, and often finds that one is self made.

I suspect you too are "self made".

It does not matter if one is a "lowly" blue collar guy, or one is a billionaire, when one has the above mindset.
It sort of gives what in sanskrit (hindu philosophy) called "equal sight" (loose translation), and which means one views all things with equal favour. And that physical lacks / deprivations/ disparity is also taken in ones stride.

It is a great gift if you have these two qualities, mind you.

Coming to your question, Imagine the holes NOT as separate entities, but as "part of" an entity that is the worm! the holes are but its two ends. All it takes to move a and b ends is a wriggle! (across space-time)!! Edddington (if i remember right) said that space is multidimensional and it "our own imperfections" that set the limit on our senses of the same. we "see" 3d space. We permit a 4th dimension we call "time" as in space-time, but when matter "leaves 3d space" thru the hole, how are we to know which spatial route thru which dimension it might take, before re-emerging into 3d space again?
[that is what i meant by the wriggle]. we know too little.

But it is an uphill struggle, doing what you are doing. I suspect your grounding in the maths required, (even mine too) is not enough for you (and me too) to grasp what "we" are trying to "learn" here.

At such time one must use the "child's approach"..soack up what one CAN understand easily, and leave the rest "until later"! [the path of least striving but complete attention, is what is followed by a child, whe nat age 2 and 3 it is mastering language! (A super human feat, literally accomplished with the ease of a child!!).

We see that miracle happen daily but "never understand" it do we?

hope that suffices,
As usual please  do rate the answer.

regards
Jayen

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Jayen-
Thank You for your Top-Notch "Layman's Dissertation of Wormhole Theory"! You explained,in terms I could understand, something I've heard a thousand times(I'm an avid Sci-Fi buff), something I've evn "saw" craft like the Defiant or the Enterprise or the Millenium Falcon FLY THROUGH, but yet has never been explained as succinctly as YOU did. Hats off to a Great Teacher, this website is lucky to have you!  Can I ask just a couple more questions, and then I'll hold off, for a while. (1.)Can you recommend one or two really good books, for explaining or at least describing the Wonders of the Universe, in terms an intelligent, but non-Physicist Science and Cosmplogy lover can understand? (2.)I've heard it said that Quasars are probably the most distant, and most energetic objects we see in the universe. I have seen the Hubble Deep Field photos(breathtaking, they truly show us HOW SMALL we are, and yet part of something SO grand),so if the Deep Field photos show galaxies and primordial objects as they were 12-15 Billion years ago, wouldn't THEY be the "most distant" objects we can see? (3.)I have read a question about a Black Holes I read another site's expert answer after a question about mini-Black Hole "eating" Earth, from a Black hole with 1 Billion-ton mass: "Earth,  weighs about 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. A black hole that weighs a billion tons would have an event horizon that's only about 10^-15 meters." My question, here, is HOW do you calculate the Event Horizon size, from the Mass of the Black Hole? And how would you KNOW the Mass of the Black Hole, anyway?       I know there's 3 questions, here, but the 1st is an opinion on books, and the 3rd is a mathematical formula, probably? Anyway, Jayen, Thank you very much, again, for your GREAT talent as an instructor, and quenching part of my thirst for knowledge!    Mike

Answer
Hi,
Mike if i had been a lady i would be blushing at all the accolades.
You sure you arent pulling my leg or going all sarcastic on me are you? :)

1 - Books are many,
a) - Hawking's brief history of time
b) - Sagan's Cosmos
c) - Fred Hoyle's Frontiers of Astronomy
d) - Gamov's The birth and death of the sun
e) - Edddington / Clarke Music of the spheres

Plus the whole web has latest research articles "close at hand".
All one do is type in an intelligent query to tap into it.

Books a thru e i have had the good fortune to read and own (except e that i do not own).

Most entertaining are b, c, d,e.
In c, for instance you would know how the salinity of the oceans has been used to date the age of the earth!
Also in one of those you will read about how radioactive potassium in the rocks aids continental drift..

Gamov's book is best for solar issues.
Scientefic American is a great periodical i am currently subscribing.

2 - The event horizon actually is the swartzchild radius (to my knowledge) that is very much a function of the mass of the object it encloses. The singularity. especially if it is non-rotating.

find the formula at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzschild_radius

fairly simple actually. In college we dreived it ourselves.
All one needs to do is put C in place of v in the formula for escape velocity!

3 - One knows the mass of a hole (or any gravitating object), simply by knowing the distance and the "pull", or if an orbit has ben established, by the orbital params.

hope that suffices.

Please do rate the answer.

Jayen