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Space and Time Warps This lecture is the intellectual property of Professor S.W. Hawking. You may not reproduce, edit or distribute this document in anyway for monetary advantage. In science fiction, space and time warps are a commonplace. They are used for rapid journeys around the galaxy, or for travel through time. But today's science fiction, is often tomorrow's science fact. So what are the chances for space and time warps. The idea that space and time can be curved, or warped, is fairly recent. For more than two thousand years, the axioms of Euclidean geometry, were considered to be self evident. As those of you that were forced to learn Euclidean geometry at school may remember, one of the consequences of these axioms is, that the angles of a triangle, add up to a hundred and 80 degrees. However, in the last century, people began to realize that other forms of geometry were possible, in which the angles of a triangle, need not add up to a hundred and 80 degrees. Consider, for example, the surface of the Earth. The nearest thing to a straight line on the surface of the Earth, is what is called, a great circle. These are the shortest paths between two points, so they are the roots that air lines use. Consider now the triangle on the surface of the Earth, made up of the equator, the line of 0 degrees longitude through London, and the line of 90 degrees longtitude east, through Bangladesh. The two lines of longitude, meet the equator at a right angle, 90 degrees. The two lines of longitude also meet each other at the north pole, at a right angle, or 90 degrees. Thus one has a triangle with three right angles. The angles of this triangle add up to two hundred and seventy degrees. This is greater than the hundred and eighty degrees, for a triangle on a flat surface. If one drew a triangle on a saddle shaped surface, one would find that the angles added up to less than a hundred and eighty degrees