wormhole
Sign in to savethumb|upright=1.3|A wormhole visualized as a two-dimensional surface. Route (a) is the shortest path through normal space between points 1 and 2; route (b) is a shorter path through a wormhole.
AI overview
A wormhole is a theoretical tunnel through space that could potentially connect two distant points more directly than traveling through normal space. If wormholes exist, they could allow shortcuts across the universe, though physicists have not yet confirmed they are real or physically possible.
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Article
20 sectionsContents
- Terminology
- Modern definitions
- Development
- Schwarzschild wormholes
- Einstein–Rosen bridges
- Traversable wormholes<!--linked from 'Joseph Polchinski'-->
- Raychaudhuri's theorem and exotic matter
- Modified general relativity
- Faster-than-light travel
- Time travel
- Interuniversal travel<!--'Interuniversal travel', 'Inter-universal travel' and 'Everett phone' redirect here-->
- Metrics
- In fiction
- Warp portals and higher-dimensional shortcuts
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Citations
- Sources
- External links
thumb|upright=1.3|A wormhole visualized as a two-dimensional surface. Route (a) is the shortest path through normal space between points 1 and 2; route (b) is a shorter path through a wormhole.
A wormhole is a hypothetical structure that connects disparate points in spacetime. It 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 based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. Wormholes are consistent with the general theory of relativity, but whether they actually exist is unknown. Many physicists 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.