Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1446 - 1449 (1988)

Wormholes, Time Machines, and the Weak Energy Condition

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Michael S. Morris, Kip S. Thorne, and Ulvi Yurtsever
Theoretical Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

Received 21 June 1988

It is argued that, if the laws of physics permit an advanced civilization to create and maintain a wormhole in space for interstellar travel, then that wormhole can be converted into a time machine with which causality might be violatable. Whether wormholes can be created and maintained entails deep, ill-understood issues about cosmic censorship, quantum gravity, and quantum field theory, including the question of whether field theory enforces an averaged version of the weak energy condition.


©1988 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v61/p1446
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.1446
PACS: 04.60.+n, 03.70.+k, 04.20.Cv

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