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Not Just Science Fiction: 'Electromagnetic Wormhole'

Possible, Say Mathematicians
Date: October 13, 2007

Source: University of Rochester

Summary: The team of mathematicians that first created the mathematics behind the 'invisibility
cloak' has now shown that the same technology could be used to generate an
'electromagnetic wormhole.'

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RELATED TOPICS FULL STORY

Space & Time

The team of mathematicians that first created the
Immerse yourself in the
 Black Holes mathematics behind the "invisibility cloak"
story. $1 a week.
 Astronomy announced by physicists last October has now
Groundbreaking reporting. Innovative
shown that the same technology could be used to
 Cosmic Rays features. Enjoy every article, video and
generate an "electromagnetic wormhole." podcast.
 Asteroids, Comets and
Meteors In the study, which is to appear in the Oct. 12 issue of Physical
Review Letters, Allan Greenleaf, professor of mathematics at the
Computers & Math
University of Rochester, and his coauthors lay out a variation on
 Mathematics the theme of cloaking. Their results open the possibility of building
a sort of invisible tunnel between two points in space.
 Math Puzzles
"Imagine wrapping Harry Potter's invisibility cloak around a tube,"
 Statistics says Greenleaf. "If the material is designed according to our Ad By The New York Times See More

 Computer Science specifications, you could pass an object into one end, watch it
disappear as it traveled the length of the tunnel, and then see it
reappear out the other end."
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Current technology can create objects invisible only to microwave
radiation, but the mathematical theory allows for the wormhole SPACE & TIME
effect for electromagnetic waves of all frequencies. With this in
Astronomers May Have Discovered
mind, Greenleaf and his coauthors propose several possible
a Planet Outside of Our Galaxy
applications. Endoscopic surgeries where the surgeon is guided by
MRI imaging are problematical because the intense magnetic
Be prepared fields generated by the MRI scanner affect the surgeon's tools, Rocky Exoplanets Are Even
and the tools can distort the MRI images. Greenleaf says, Stranger Than We Thought
for your next
however, that passing the tools through an EM wormhole could
conversation.
effectively hide them from the fields, allowing only their tips to be
$1 a week. "visible" at work. Did Venus Ever Have Oceans?
Stay current with To create cloaking technology, Greenleaf and his collaborators use
expert reporting on theoretical mathematics to design a device to guide the
travel, tech, style
electromagnetic waves in a useful way. Researchers could then MATTER & ENERGY
and business.
use these blueprints to create layers of specially engineered, light-
Making Aircraft Fuel from Sunlight
bending, composite materials called metamaterials. and Air
Last year, David R. Smith, professor of electrical and computer
engineering at Duke's Pratt School, and his coauthors engineered
Securing Data Transfers With
an invisibility device as a disk, which allowed microwaves to pass Relativity
around it. Greenleaf and his coauthors have now employed more
elaborate geometry to specify exactly what properties are
demanded of a wormhole's metamaterial in order to create the Just a Game? Study Shows No Evidence That
"invisible tunnel" effect. They also calculated what additional Violent Video Games Lead to Real-Life Violence
optical effects would occur if the inside of the wormhole was
COMPUTERS & MATH
coated with a variety of hypothetical metamaterials.
Ad By The New York Spiders' Web Secrets Unraveled
Assuming that your vision was limited to the few frequencies at
Times which the wormhole operates, looking in one end, you'd see a
distorted view out the other end, according the simulations by
See More
Greenleaf and his coauthors. Depending on the length of the tube Giving Robots Social Skills
and how often the light bounced around inside, you might see just
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a fisheye view out the other end, or you might see an Escher-like Silent Hypoxia
jumble.
RELATED TERMS
Greenleaf and his coauthors speculated on one use of the
 John von Neumann electromagnetic wormhole that sounds like something out of
science fiction. If the metamaterials making up the tube were able
 Symmetry in mathematics
to bend all wavelengths of visible light, they could be used to make
 Möbius strip a 3D television display. Imagine thousands of thin wormholes
sticking up out of a box like a tuft of long grass in a vase. The
 European Southern
wormholes themselves would be invisible, but their ends could
Observatory
transmit light carried up from below. It would be as if thousands of
 Mathematics pixels were simply floating in the air.

 Calculus But that idea, Greenleaf concedes, is a very long way off. Even
though the mathematics now says that it's possible, it's up to
 Supernova
engineers to apply these results to create a working prototype.
 Trigonometry
Greenleaf's coauthors are Matti Lassas, professor of mathematics
at the Helsinki University of Technology; Yaroslav Kurylev,
professor of mathematics at the University College, London; and
Gunther Uhlmann, Walker Family Endowed Professor of
Investigate further.
Mathematics at the University of Washington. Subscribe for $1 a
week.
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intrigue you. Subscribe today.
Materials provided by University of Rochester. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.

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'Electromagnetic Wormhole' Possible, Say Mathematicians."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 October 2007.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071012160144.htm>.
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