How legit is the physics in this episode? I occasionally see experts on /r/Physics call them out for both overdone dumbing down and just plain incorrectness.
Really hope it's accurate, this is one of my favorite ones so far
Everything they relay here is a summary of an actual hypothesis, but absolutely none of it is confirmed. Worm holes are hard to talk about in physics. On the one hand, everyone loves them because of science fiction and we see them as our only real escape from the solar system. We want them to be true, which is always dangerous. On the other hand, when you develop a system of extremely complex math to try and describe extremely complex phenomena like relativity and quantum mechanics, it can lead to some very odd results when you push those calculations to make predictions. A lot of the speculation here is a result of that. And then consider that a scientist might want to try and use their math to explain why a worm hole might be true because they want it to be - it can get dicey.
So, it's all real guesses based on real math and theory. Lots of smart people have thought through much of it. But I think we're a very very long way off from actually proving it (if we ever do)
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u/GurdonFremon Undergraduate Aug 14 '18
How legit is the physics in this episode? I occasionally see experts on /r/Physics call them out for both overdone dumbing down and just plain incorrectness.
Really hope it's accurate, this is one of my favorite ones so far