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sumknowbuddy t1_j43hd7b wrote

Assuming this wormhole as an object needs to exist in equilibrium, it would have to consume matter at a rate equal to the energy released.

Your example is somewhat flawed, even with a basic example of centrifugal and centripetal motion. You're basically saying that the centrpetal motion we understand as gravity is bypassed, allowing the object to "gain" energy from falling. It would've actually been under more energy/force closer to the Earth, and has lost energy by rising. The falling is just the re-equalizing of the potential energy to the point where that object in its surroundings exist most stably.

Also you go from saying "objects will gain more energy" to saying "it'll take more energy to open a wormhole than any potential use of it would be worth". Did you have a point, or were you trying to contradict yourself?

You're also assuming things pass through undistorted. Say you drop something extremely dense through, like lead, does it face any compression? The release of energy on exiting such a wormhole would be where that equalizes; the systems would maintain that energy as the object moves through each stage.

Assuming that a "wormhole" acts as a portal is silly, if such a thing were to exist and you assume it has either extremely high or extremely low gravity, it would need to be adjusted approximately to travel through this wormhole. Just because gravity differs doesn't mean everything else doesn't apply. If gravity is so high, the amount of energy required to move something across it would be insane. If it were extremely low, the shear forces would reach atomic levels quickly, essentially dissolving anything that entered with any energy (assuming it's essentially a vacuum). To account for this would be extremely difficult.

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chancellortobyiii OP t1_j43izqm wrote

Just imagine two billiard balls. One ball is near the edge of the wormhole at ground level. Throw a second billiard ball at a very slow speed just to nudge the first billiard ball into the ground level wormhole. The first billiard ball goes in the wormhole, drops 1 kilometer and by the time it reaches the ground again it would have attained a speed greater than the second billiard ball you threw to nudge it in.

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sumknowbuddy t1_j442k5g wrote

How are you missing that the ball is not gaining any energy? That energy is simply being applied to the ground all the time in the case of the one on the ground, and the one falling is gaining energy to try and match the one that seems to be "at rest".

Are you aware of [elastic] potential energy? Or yhe energy contained in chemical bonds? A spring sitting under compression? Just because they are 'at rest' in reference to one thing doesn't mean they contain no energy in that system. You're just looking at the wrong things.

Also, how is any of this related to thermodynamics? I'm pretty sure all of those laws have to do with heat transfer...

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chancellortobyiii OP t1_j44ffci wrote

The second law of thermodynamics states that as energy is transferred or transformed, more and more of it is wasted. It's one of the four laws of thermodynamics, which describe the relationships between thermal energy, or heat, and OTHER FORMS OF ENERGY and how energy affects matter.

The 2nd law is not just about heat.

What is thermodynamics? Thermodynamics is the study of the relations between heat, work, temperature, and energy. The laws of thermodynamics describe how the energy in a system changes and whether the system can perform useful work on its surroundings.

Again thermodynamics is not just about heat.

>That energy is simply being applied to the ground all the time in the case of the one on the ground,

Yes, of course the falling billiard will transfer its energy to the ground. The point is the energy it tried to transfer TO THE GROUND is bigger than the energy the second biliard ball tried to transfer to the first billiard ball when it nudged it into the wormhole.

You're the one misguided in your notions.

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sumknowbuddy t1_j4575ls wrote

Again, you're looking at a very narrow scope for the question you're posing. It's not gaining energy at all, since the Earth would be exerting the same amount of energy on it regardless.

Had your wormhole pulled it from a pure vacuum that cannot actually exist in real life, your 'misguided notions' would be correct. However, the energy in the system has not changed at all; the location of your theoretical billiard ball has. Now if we extrapolate the energy distribution over time across a large timeframe, unless we'll assume that that billiard ball is undergoing infinite "nudges" into said wormhole [all of which you're conveniently ignoring as energy going into the system], then that ball falling in a single instance is no different from one at a standstill in reference to the Earth.

For such a theoretical, large scale question, you sure are focused on the minutiae.

And wouldn't it be better just to use Newton's Laws, which the laws of thermodynamics are derived from anyways..?

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