What are Wormholes?

For something that seems to be more in the realm of science fiction than science wormholes have received a great amount of energy from scientists the world over. Wormholes are entirely theoretical, yet “proof” has been laid out by eminent thinkers for years in tomes and classrooms, including such minds as Albert Einstein. Do wormholes exist and, if so, could they ever be harnessed for space and time travel?

A Look at Wormholes

American theoretical physicist John Wheeler is credited with coming up with the term “wormhole” in 1957, although the concept of a wormhole appeared in the works of Hermann Weyl as early as 1921 while studying electromagnetic field energy.

Why the name wormhole? The explanation of the name actually gives a clear explanation of what a wormhole is supposed to be and what it is supposed to do. Suppose you have a worm travelling around the outside of an apple. Should it chose to stop and eat its way straight through to the other side you would have a wormhole in the apple. Now say a second worm came along and took a shortcut through the wormhole—it would arrive at the other side of the apple much quicker than if it chose to travel around the whole way. Thus a wormhole is a tunnel through “space-time”, connecting two different parts of the universe. Or, in some theories, different universes all together.

Spacetime is a concept in physics that combines the three dimension of space and the one dimension of time into one model, often called the “space-time continuum.” A wormhole would start with a “mouth” or opening at one point in spacetime and end with a second mouth at a second point, with a tunnel, or “throat”, connecting the two mouths. Theoretically a traveller could take this shortcut through spacetime and arrive at the second point much more quickly than if he took conventional travel through normal spacetime, or “the long way around.”

Faster than Light

According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, faster than light travel is impossible by conventional means, but even Einstein considered that it would be possible using a wormhole - should they actually exist. Technically the object making the journey would never exceed the speed of light, travelling at whatever speed its propulsion systems could manage, but would make the journey in less time than light would take to travel to the same destination outside the wormhole shortcut.

Time Travel

Taking the wormhole theory off the charts, scientists played with the idea that one could manipulate and control the mouths of the wormhole. By moving one mouth forward or backwards in time, a person entering the stationary mouth would then emerge in a different time, becoming a time-traveller.

Final Thoughts

Travelling from one side of the universe to the other in one lifetime, travelling backwards and forward in time, and even travelling form one universe to an entirely separate, parallel universe; it is no wonder that wormholes are a popular device among science fiction writers. And yet, all of these concepts have come from the minds of scientists, astronomers, physicists and the like exploring “what ifs”.