Implications of a terraformed Venus/Triton

[AlexanderHowl]

Local frames are a rather odd concept within physics because the local frame could be the entire Sol System, Triton, Venus, an ingot of diamond, or an pallet of ammonia ice. In relation to the Milky Way, the entire Sol System is one local frame. In relation to the Sun, Triton and Venus are each one local frame. In relation to Venus, a diamond ingot made from atmospheric carbon dioxide is a local frame. In relation to Triton, a pallet of ammonia ice is a local frame. But local frames only exist relative to the local gravitation field (the diamond ingot possesses a local frame to Venus, not to Triton, and the pallet of ammonia ice possesses a local frame to Triton, not to Venus).

Of course, the assumption of using a wormhole for transportation is handwavium because you could create a new galaxy from the hypothetical energy required to stabilize a wormhole, so you might as well have it do whatever you want with it because the science does not matter. Wormholes are a 4 on Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness, as in that they are One Big Lie (they exist only mathematically as far as we can tell and only unstable wormholes only really fit within our understanding of physics).

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

But local frames only exist relative to the local gravitation field

Err, what? A frame of reference is a certain coordinate system you project onto the space-time around you so you can assign where things are. How do you get from this to only existing relative to a local gravitational field?

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Of course, the assumption of using a wormhole for transportation is handwavium because you could create a new galaxy from the hypothetical energy required to stabilize a wormhole

Take the Visser wormhole. It is constructed by "sewing" together two patches of otherwise disconnected flat space-time. There are parts of the Visser wormhole where the magnitude of the energy density is extraordinarily high. But the net energy of a Visser wormhole is zero. Since by construction they are in flat space-time, and energy curves space-time, the Visser wormhole can have no net energy. From the point of an engineer making one of these out in the flat space-time area, in principle he could pop them out without any energy input at all.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

they exist only mathematically as far as we can tell and only unstable wormholes only really fit within our understanding of physics

The original traversable wormhole originally proposed by Thorne and one of his students was stabilized quite nicely by the Casimir effect. This is a perfectly reasonable model of a wormhole that obeys all known laws of physics and is still stable.

Luke