Lesson 6: Wormholes and Travel Across the Universe


Watch the following scenes to learn about wormholes.

Scene 1:

In this scene, we see one of the major ways science fiction writers use to traverse long distances: worm holes.  In particular, the worm hole in Deep Space 9 is stable and is used to travel across the galaxy.

DS9 Wormhole http://vimeo.com/98224061

Scene 2:

In this scene, the crew of Voyager finds out that it will take the 75 years to reach Earth.  The distances involved in their travel would take a beam of light thousands of years to traverse.  To get around this problem, the tv show writers use the idea of a space warp to warp space so that the space ship can travel faster than light. 

STVS1E1 75 years http://vimeo.com/98224551

Scene 3:

In this scene there are two interesting things that occur.  The first is that because the distances between galaxies is so large, the TV show writers use wormholes (gates) to travel from one galaxy to another in approximately 30 minutes.  The second interesting thing that occurs in this scene is that the TV show authors try to depict a space ship traveling between the two galaxies at near the speed of light.  The scene also tells the student that even moving at the speed of light the trip would take over a million years.

SGAS3E10 Bridge light speed http://vimeo.com/98224152