Our Bizarre Universe Part 3: Wormholes
If you’ve ever seen Star Wars, Star Trek, or even Marvel superhero movies such as Doctor Strange or the Avengers, then you probably are familiar with the concept of portals that allow characters to travel from one place to another in a very short amount of time. While they seem like pure fiction, scientists actually have a formal name for them - wormholes - and some even believe that they could exist in real life!
What is a wormhole?
First, let’s explain what wormholes are. Wormholes are tunnels in space that allow you to travel from one point in the universe to another in a shorter amount of time and distance than if you went the “long way around.” To get a picture of what this looks like, draw two Xs on a piece of paper, each on opposite ends. Label one as “Earth” and the other as “Pluto.” Now, draw a straight line connecting the Earth and Pluto. This is the “long way around,” the boring path without a wormhole. Now, in order to make the wormhole, fold the paper in half so both the Xs are touching each other, and then poke your pencil through the Xs. There! Notice how going straight through the curved paper to get from Earth to Pluto was shorter and took less time than going the “long way around?” Well, this is basically what a wormhole is - a hole through a curved part of space that connects two distant parts of the universe. Imagine jumping into a portal that transports you to Pluto in a second! (You can also see the steps to this mini experiment below).
Wait, these are backed by science?!
As crazy as a portal to another part of the universe might seem, wormholes are true in theory. When something in the universe is only true “in theory” it means that it is predicted to work but has actually never been observed. Wormholes, then, are predicted to be real by the math, but they are things we have never actually seen. Back in 1935, two great scientists who you may have heard of, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, developed the idea of wormholes, or as they called them then, Einstein-Rosen bridges. To their amazement, the math predicted that if space could be bent in a certain way, different parts of the universe could be connected. (According to Einstein’s earlier work twenty years earlier, all objects bend the fabric of space. So if something bent space in a weird and strong enough way, a wormhole could appear).
What scientists think today
Over the years, scientists have come to agree with Einstein and Rosen that wormholes do indeed work in theory. However, they soon realized that these wormholes couldn’t actually be used for travel, as they would be too unstable and collapse the moment anything tried to go through. But, don’t lose hope! Several astronomers have proposed the idea of exotic matter, which is matter that works opposite to our normal every day matter. Instead of attracting objects through gravity, exotic matter would repel objects with incredible strength. It is thought that exotic matter could be used to hold wormholes open like a doorstop, thus allowing objects to flow in and out.
Although we have never found a wormhole lurking in the universe, we have the math to believe that they could exist. And who knows, with all the groundbreaking discoveries in the last 100 years of astronomy, wormholes could become a reality and might even be discovered within your lifetime!
