What is Wormhole: Definition and 112 Discussions

A wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge or Einstein–Rosen wormhole) is a speculative structure linking disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations.
A wormhole can be visualized as a tunnel with two ends at separate points in spacetime (i.e., different locations, different points in time, or both).
Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity by Einstein, but whether wormholes actually exist remains to be seen. Many scientists postulate that wormholes are merely projections of a fourth spatial dimension, analogous to how a two-dimensional (2D) being could experience only part of a three-dimensional (3D) object.Theoretically, a wormhole might connect extremely long distances such as a billion light years, or short distances such as a few meters, or different points in time, or even different universes.

View More On Wikipedia.org
Recent contents Top users
  1. H

    Questions about black holes and wormholes

    Questions about black holes: Various articles mention that it takes infinite amount of time to observe something pass through the event horizon. Does this imply that the redshift observed from afar would carry on forever, that the infalling object would just become dimmer and dimmer, but never...
  2. K

    Interstellar Movie: Wormholes & String Cosmology Explained

    Hello. In the movie Interstellar with Matthew McConaughey, there is a scene where wormholes are being explained. The characters say that the wormhole passage is a passage way through 5 dimensional space. Also when they are going through the wormhole they say they are passing through the bulk...
  3. dQniel

    Wormhole the Moon through the Earth

    I'm working on a potential sci-fi story that takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth. The idea is Something Horrible 1A happens, then, 15-20 years later, Something Horrible 1B comes to finish us off. In a perfect world, the Moon is gone after 1A. Initial possibilities included a long orbit...
  4. Q

    Moving object launched by observer into a Wormhole

    Wormholes usually send things through time and space, right? So if an observer threw a baseball through a wormhole, the baseball's position in space-time would change. However, can that action affect the observer's location in space and time, or would it create some sort of paradox?
  5. DaveC426913

    Is the depiction of curvature in wormhole diagrams accurate or misleading?

    Still reading Kip Thorne's book on Interstellar. It, like so many other books that describe wormholes, shows a schematic of a wormhole like this: It's easy to intuit that the path through the wormhole is much shorter than the path through "normal" space. But that's because they're drawn it...
  6. J

    Can entangled particles communicate through time?

    Thought experiment; You entangle a pair of particles. a chrono-naught takes one half of the pair and gets into Eisenstein's train, which now encircles the earth, and is then accelerated to .999 the speed of light and continues around the Earth for a million years or so. the other half of the...
  7. V

    Non-Moving Wormhole & Moving Observer: Paradoxes?

    I've recently come across the claim that if the mouths of a hypothetic wormhole don't move in relation to each other, then paradoxes in the form of closed timelike curves cannot be demonstrated to occur, even if an observer moves at relativistic speed relative to them. Is this true? I want to...
  8. P

    Does wormhole create gravitational wave?

    I've seen many sci-fi that they said wormhole could be detected by its gravitational wave ? Does wormhole actually create gravitational wave ? And how could a pair of black hole spinning around each other create such thing as gravity wave ? I am sorry for lacking knowledge about general relativity.
  9. The Un-Observer

    Theoretically, how much energy would it take for a wormhole

    I'm writing a story and the general idea is about a city that vanishes from the Earth because a wormhole spawned on Earth in that exact location. It is moved not to another area in space, but to an entirely different spacetime. The wormhole in question only stayed open for a few seconds before...
  10. snoopies622

    In order to build a wormhole. .

    According to Wikipedia's "Wormhole" essay, this is a metric for a traversable wormhole : ds^2 = -c^2 dt^2 + dl^2 + (k^2 + l^2)(d \theta ^2 + sin ^2 \theta d \phi ^2) If we assume the Einstein relation R_{uv} - \frac {1}{2} R g_{uv} = \frac {8 \pi G}{c^4} T_{uv} what kind of distribution of...
  11. S

    Questions about Traversable Wormhole Metric

    First of all, the metric I am referring to is this one: ds2= -c2dt2 + dl2 + (k2 + l2)(dᶿ2 + sin2(ᶿ)dø2) where k is the radius of the throat of the wormhole. (sorry for the small Greek letters) Now I have two questions about this solution to Einstein's equations: 1. What does the coordinate l...
  12. S

    Creating of Wormhole during entanglement

    Creation of Wormhole during entanglement Does entanglement work via a wormhole (in space-time)? How does time emerge from entanglement via comparison of an entangled state with a non-entangled one?
  13. Superposed_Cat

    Black Hole & Wormhole: Questions Answered

    Hi, two questions A) If a black hole travels into a wormhole would it collapse the wormhole? B) If a wormhole travels through another wormhole what would happen? Thanks for any help.
  14. K

    Is it possible for a wormhole to have zero spacetime curvature?

    I have always read that a wormhole will quickly collapse in on itself due to its own gravity, forming a black hole, unless it is held open by some exotic matter that has a negative energy density. But couldn't there exist a wormhole with zero spacetime curvature? It would therefore have no...
  15. P

    Wormhole proper radial distance

    I've been reading the excellent article from Morris and Thorne: "Wormholes in spacetime and their use for interstellar travel a tool for teaching general relativity" and there's something I don't quite get it. In the ninth page the authors state: "[...] in the general case, the radial coordinate...
  16. E

    Difference between black hole solutions and wormhole solutions

    How do we know which one is a black hole solution(metric) or a wormhole solution(metric)? what is its feature?
  17. E

    Wormhole Problem: Limit of Acceleration?

    Hello every one, some days ago, i was talking with some friends and we found a weird trouble that we can't explain so i wanted to ask it cause the curiosity its killing me... well the trouble its this: Suppose you are standing in the surface of a planet without atmosphere and you open a...
  18. B

    Please help with episode of Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman

    I saw this episode of Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman on Discovery Science recently and it was about how to increase human intelligence but the episode was almost finished by the time I tuned into the channel and the only thing I saw was the end of the explanation of a scientist who was...
  19. PeterDonis

    Black Hole as Wormhole: Exploring the Possibility in the Paper by Poplawski

    A recent thread on Hacker News led me to this paper by Poplawski: http://arxiv.org/abs/0902.1994 The abstract says: "We consider the radial geodesic motion of a massive particle into a black hole in isotropic coordinates, which represents the exterior region of an Einstein-Rosen bridge...
  20. V

    Exploring FTL Travel Using Minkowski Diagrams & Wormholes

    This thread gave me an idea. What if a method of "FTL" travel, similar to wormhole would consist of a tunnel that had a physical distance "inside" that any signal would have to traverse, and that distance being equal to the time dilation between the mouths of the tunnel since its/their...
  21. S

    Soft SF writer wonders: How might a hot chick conjure a traversable wormhole?

    I'm working on a sci-fi / noir / mystery novel for my thesis, and I've endowed my femme fatale heroine with the ability to conjure traversable wormholes. It's important that she be able to do this without the aid of any machine or finite quantity of exotic matter that she would have to...
  22. N

    Viewing a far away galaxy through a wormhole

    Hypothetically speaking of course, if we were to observe a galaxy billions of light years away on the opposite end of the universe through a wormhole, what would the red shift look like compared to other galaxies in the observable universe? For example, I'll set up a thought experiment. We...
  23. H

    Wormholes: Exploring the Enigma of Spacetime Tunnels

    I know it must be a little annoying to have someone ask for a simple explanation of something that isn't simple, but I've been trying to find out in various ways and nothing seems to explain exactly what a wormhole is. Sort of, not just how does it work but also how does it occur and what is it...
  24. R

    What is a wormhole and how does it relate to the universe and space?

    Need explanation on wormhole Hello frnds, i m new to this forum and having a interest in cosmology but short of knowledge. I have seen a documentary film on universe and space and came to know about wormhole, so i have following question on it- 1. From where concept of wormhole came? 2. Why...
  25. S

    Hi allI want to read more on wormhole theory and create speciality

    Hi all I want to read more on wormhole theory and create speciality in wormhole theory . I am from engineering background, working in IT industry. so totally out of touch with physics and mathematics.Can anyone suggest some road map for me. How i can grasp the intricacies of wormhole theories.
  26. C

    Question about Brian Greene's wormhole illustration in Fabirc of the Cosmos

    Question about Brian Greene's wormhole illustration in "Fabirc of the Cosmos" I'm currently watching this show on NOVA narrated by Brian Greene called "The Fabric of the Cosmos". In the first episode, he talks about space and the fact that it has properties. In the second episode, he talks...
  27. E

    Is the Speed of Light Really the Limit of the Universe?

    I was watching this show and it was talking about the usual stuff such as wormholes and warping spacetime but the one thing that caught my attention was towards the end. I can't remember the guy`s name but he was talking about observing spectral lines and how when he had looked in one direction...
  28. E

    Connecting Two endpoints in space using a Wormhole.

    Theoretically, a wormhole could be used to connect two points in space time and be stabilized using exotic negative matter for practical uses. My question is "how exactly (theoretically) would one actually go about connecting two completely different coordinates in space time? How do you...
  29. C

    I remember reading somewhere about how a wormhole lets you see

    I remember reading somewhere about how a wormhole let's you see yourself 10-30 years ago, I don't understand how that works. I knew they are a 'shortcut' through space time, but is it because your traveling a distance so large, but technically your just going through a much shorter distance...
  30. Q

    How can I construct a wormhole?

    How to embed a wormhole? http://www.physics.louisville.edu/wkomp/teaching/spring2006/589/final/wormholes.pdf" Please download the paper and then look at Fig. 1(b). I want to know, how we can construct such a wormhole. Would you please help find the metric describing the universe with...
  31. P

    Wormhole - Conservation of Mass

    I'm going to apologize now if what I say doesn't really make sense, I'm still only learning the basics of physics. Let's say that few hundred or maybe thousands of years, we developed some sort of device that can rip a hole into the space time fabric to create a wormhole. If a spaceship...
  32. R

    Can 5D Wormholes Make Instant Global Shipping Possible?

    General Relativity can work up to 100 dimensions or more. Supposed Lisa Randall were right and there were extra large dimensions. Would it be easier to build wormhole between say New York and Europe so packages sent in futuristic Fedex would take instantaneously time to get transfered? It's...
  33. T

    Wormhole Creation: Theoretical Methods and Questions

    Hello, I'm a liberal arts type with an interest in wormholes, so bear with my "science". From my readings, there are two (highly theoretically, of course) ways of creating a wormhole: 1. Focus a galactic-level beam of energy/mass at a single point. This will create a naked singularity...
  34. S

    I just wanted to know what exactly is a wormhole?

    I just wanted to know what exactly is a wormhole...
  35. Jadaav

    Exploring the Universe: Black Hole vs. Wormhole Differences

    What is the difference between a black hole and a wormhole ?
  36. nomadreid

    What is the Krasnikov Metric for Wormholes and How Does It Create Exotic Matter?

    On 12.April 2000, BBC news http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/710812.stm, quoting an article in New Scientist (to which I don’t have access, and which is anyway usually sketchy on details), wrote that Sergei Krasnikov of the Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg has found a way...
  37. N

    Speed of object emerging from wormhole

    Let us say there is a wormhole of the Einstein-Rosen type (maybe physically impossible, I know, but just assume somehow it exists). A 'rain observer' falls from rest at a large distance into the black hole, then emerges from the white hole on the other side. My question is, what is the...
  38. rhody

    Morgan Freeman & Garrett Lisi on "Through the Wormhole

    Garrett's own critique of the show and himself http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=2990": Rhody...
  39. P

    Can a Collapsing Star Form a Wormhole?

    I have a question about what happens if: A collapsing star (with an appropriate mass <20solar masses) forms a "donut" shape as it collapses. (first, is that possible?) and would it generate a wormhole traveling through the "donuts" center? The only thing that causes me to believe it would is...
  40. Artlav

    So, any ideas?Exploring the Visuals of Traversable Wormholes

    I wonder what would various exotic objects in general relativity look like, alone and with things around them, for example a traversable wormhole. To that end, I'm trying to make a raytracer-like renderer for curved space. The problem is, i have vague idea what to expect. So, are there any...
  41. C

    What is a Euclidean Wormhole? | Ask Your Question

    I have a question wormholes. I know the loretzian wormholehas a black hole and the theoretical white hole. The Euclidean wormhole I don't know anything about. All I know is that they are from quantum mechanics. Can I have a non mathematical answer to what they are? Thanks!
  42. S

    Query - could a comet impact create a wormhole?

    probably a dumb question but could a comet or asteroid impact ever create a mini wormhole or mini black hole or the like? also what's worse in terms of impact damage? - a comet, asteroid or meteor? thanks
  43. A

    What Happens When You Go Through a Wormhole?

    Hey Have heard that if you go trough a wormhole, you go to another place in space. You will also go to another time in space. Why is it that you go to another time, when you get to the other side of a wormhole? Is it because when entering it, you will be in one place in the river of time, and...
  44. M

    Is energy conserved in general relativity?

    I've been reading about the possibility of time travel by accelerating one end of the wormhole and then returning it to its original position giving you a wormhole with an entrance in the present and exit in the past. If time travel using wormholes as described above is possible, can anyone...
  45. E

    Wormhole Time Machine: As Time Goes On

    Suppose a wormhole time machine is made by moving one mouth close to speed of light for a suitable time. Further suppose that immediately after the time machine is first completed, we have the following: Time at Mouth 'A' ---> 2010 Time at Mouth 'B' ---> 2000 Now if 20 years go by, would...
  46. nomadreid

    Vacuum energy destruction of wormhole

    In Kip Thorne's popularization "Einstein's Outrageous Legacy", the author explains why a wormhole which has been arranged to connect two points in spacetime so that they are spatially close to one another but not the same time would find vacuum energy entering the "future" mouth, exiting out the...
  47. J

    Derivation of Wormhole Mouth Mass/Charge?

    [Checklist: FAQ and "read before posting" posts read...] It is said that the mouths of a wormhole can have mass or charge; I can't follow the arguments used to support this conclusion and would be very grateful if anyone could help clarify the issue for me. In fact, not to put too fine a...
  48. J

    Black Holes vs Wormholes: What's the Difference?

    what is the difference between black hole and worm hole
  49. C

    Black Hole and Wormhole Trouble

    Hey everyone, I was just wondering if anyone could clear a few issues I'm having with black holes and wormholes. First, for an object above a black hole, wouldn't its gravitational potential energy be infinite, since it is above an object with infinite gravity, then causing another object...
  50. C

    Wormhole Trouble: Spacetime Folding Over Itself

    I was watching the Universe and it was talking about the wormhole concept. I was uncomfortable with the images of a wormhole because the spacetime folded over itself, and I was wondering how we got the idea that spacetime folds over itself? I never really imagined spacetime to do that.
Back
Top