What Is a Wormhole and What Happens if You Go In One
While watching different sci-fi movies sometimes we ask ourselves whether it’s possible to do the same things the characters do. For example, traveling through a wormhole.
5-Minute Crafts has found out the truth.
What a wormhole is
A wormhole is a solution to the Einstein field equations for gravity. In simple terms, it’s a “tunnel” that could allow you to travel between 2 points in space and time instantaneously. That means you could cover enormous distances very fast. Wormholes could even connect different universes. Think of our regular space-time as a sheet of paper. If you draw a line between 2 points and then fold the sheet you can push a pen through the paper. That is what a wormhole is like and that is why you can travel from points A to B so quickly.
The term “wormhole” was first proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1935. According to mathematical calculations, wormholes are very unstable, vanishingly small, and would likely collapse just after being formed. That being said, most scientists think wormholes don’t exist. They are a useful and interesting theoretical possibility but to exist, we would also need an extra dimension.
What would happen if you traveled through it
According to the laws of physics, once you enter the wormhole, you will never be able to leave. A theoretical traveler could paradoxically pass through the middle of the wormhole without actually reaching the second end. That’s because the wormholes are hidden behind so-called event horizons. They are like one-way barriers in space. Wormholes are also very unstable and close before even a glimmer of light can escape.
However, scientists found a theoretical chance to keep wormholes open. It involves using something called exotic matter to build them. It would prevent a wormhole from closing. It’s a form of matter that has negative energy or negative mass. For example, if you had 10 pounds of exotic matter, it would mean you have something with a mass of −10 pounds.
But there’s a small problem: people have never faced something which has a negative mass. On the other hand, we have found matter in the universe with negative energy. Unfortunately, it’s so rare that it’s not possible to make exotic matter for even one wormhole with it.