Can Wormholes Exist in a Flat Universe?

[skydivephil]

Its said that a wormhole could allow effective FTl travel by creating short cuts in the fabric of space tme. but if the universe is flat , how would this be a short cut? Doesnt the universe need to be curved for that?

 

[yenchin]

Its said that a wormhole could allow effective FTl travel by creating short cuts in the fabric of space tme. but if the universe is flat , how would this be a short cut? Doesnt the universe need to be curved for that?

You are imagining wormholes (if they even exist) like how they have been depicted in popular books as a tunnel like structure. This is not the case. You only have to identify the two mouths of the wormhole topologically, so that as one enters a mouth (a sphere actually) they exit through another mouth.

 

[Chalnoth]

Its said that a wormhole could allow effective FTl travel by creating short cuts in the fabric of space tme. but if the universe is flat , how would this be a short cut? Doesnt the universe need to be curved for that?

Our universe is globally flat, on average, over large distance scales. Locally it is very much curved (around planets, stars, galaxies, etc.). Wormholes, were they to exist, would just be another example of local curvature that doesn't effect the global, average curvature.