What is the Role of Subspace in Sci-Fi Universes?

[revan]

I have heard the term 'subspace' repeated many a time in various science fiction TV shows, Star Trek and Stargate the most notable. What is this subspace they refer to, does it really exist. Thankyou.

 

[hix]

I think that it may be the "space" that wormholes cut through to emerge on the other side of our "space"

 

[selfAdjoint]

have heard the term 'subspace' repeated many a time in various science fiction TV shows, Star Trek and Stargate the most notable. What is this subspace they refer to, does it really exist. Thankyou.

It's strictly a science fiction term, in this use. In geometry or topology a subspace is any subset of a space that is a space itself. For example any plane is a subspace of three dimensional space.

I think that it may be the "space" that wormholes cut through to emerge on the other side of our "space"

No, wormholes don't tunnel through anything. This may be one of the hardest ideas to grasp: the curvature in general relativity is intrinsic; it only involves spacetime itself, and doesn't require embedding spacetime in any higher dimensional space. So curved features of spacetime, including wormholes, don't go "through" anything, they are just complex curvatures within spacetime.

 

[|2eason]

I've often seen the term 'hyperspace' and 'subspace' used, but only in 2d flat pictures of gravitational effects. They are just representive tho.

 

[turbo]

"Subspace" and "hyperspace" are literary inventions that are invoked to allow the transmission of information and the transport of masses through space at FTL speeds in TV shows and movies. Star Trek (Gunsmoke in outer space) would not have worked as a series without these "cheats".