general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. ...

, a Roman ring (proposed by

Matt Visser Matt Visser is a mathematics Professor at Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand. Work Visser's research interests include general relativity, quantum field theory and cosmology. Visser has produced a large number of research paper ...

in 1997 and named after the Roman arch, a concept proposed by Mike Morris and

Kip Thorne Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Richard P. ...

in 1988 and named after physicist

Tom Roman Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in '' Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...

) is a configuration of

wormhole A wormhole ( Einstein-Rosen bridge) is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate p ...

s where no subset of wormholes is near to

chronology violation The chronology protection conjecture is a hypothesis first proposed by Stephen Hawking that laws of physics beyond those of standard general relativity prevent time travel on all but microscopic scales - even when the latter theory states that it ...

, though the combined system can be arbitrarily close to chronology violation.

Examples

For example, an

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surf ...

–

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

wormhole whose far end is 0.5 seconds in the "

past The past is the set of all events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human observers experience ...

" will not violate

causality Causality (also referred to as causation, or cause and effect) is influence by which one event, process, state, or object (''a'' ''cause'') contributes to the production of another event, process, state, or object (an ''effect'') where the ca ...

, since

information Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

sent to the far end via the wormhole and back through normal space will still arrive back on Earth (-0.5 + 1) = 0.5 seconds after it was transmitted; but an additional wormhole in the other direction will allow information to arrive back on Earth 1 second ''before'' it was transmitted (time travel). However, it is believed that relative time between the transmission of the information in one wormhole throat and out the other end in a ring structure will remain the same, because light wouldn't have violated local proper time, because the distance traveled by the information would take time, either by going the long way or through the wormhole.

Chronology protection

Semiclassical approaches to incorporating quantum effects into general relativity seem to show that the

chronology protection conjecture The chronology protection conjecture is a hypothesis first proposed by Stephen Hawking that laws of physics beyond those of standard general relativity prevent time travel on all but microscopic scales - even when the latter theory states that it ...

postulated by physicist Stephen Hawking fails to prevent the formation of such rings, although Matt Visser feels that there are reasons to think the semiclassical approach is unreliable here, and that a full theory of

quantum gravity Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the v ...

Examples

Chronology protection

Gallery

Notes

References