Imagine two towns on two opposite sides of a mountain. People from these towns would probably have to travel all the way around the mountain to visit one another. If they wanted to get there faster, they would have to dig a tunnel through the mountain. That’s the idea behind a wormhole.
A wormhole is a kind of passage between two distant places in our universe that shortens the time it takes to travel from one point to the other. Instead of taking millions of years to travel from one galaxy to another, you could theoretically (under the right conditions) cut the time down to hours or minutes with a wormhole. These mysterious structures may also help astronomers answer age-old questions about what the universe looks like.
A sci-fi favourite
Wormholes are interesting, which is why many science fiction writers use wormholes in their novels and movies. Scientists are just as captivated by them as writers are. While researchers have never found a wormhole, scientists often see wormholes described in the solutions to important physics equations. For example, the solutions to some of famous scientist Albert Einstein’s important equations – the theory of space-time and general relativity – include wormholes. The theory of space-time and general relativity describes the shape of the universe and how stars, planets and other objects move throughout it. Because Einstein’s theory has been tested many, many times and found to be correct every time, some scientists do expect wormholes to exist somewhere.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1642519507/1726203999/articles/bogqeENnd1726213379796/9789222226.jpg]
How to make a wormhole
Other scientists think wormholes can’t possibly exist because they would be too unstable. The constant pull of gravity (the force that keeps your feet on the ground) affects every object in the universe, including Earth. So gravity would have an effect on wormholes, too. The scientists who are sceptical about wormholes say that after a short time the middle of the wormhole would collapse under its own gravity. To avoid collapsing, there would need to be some kind of force pushing outward from inside the wormhole, to counteract the force of gravity and stabilise the wormhole. Scientists are unsure what could produce this so-called “negative energy”.
If negative energy could be created, it would only be in amounts much too small to act against a wormhole’s own gravity.
So, cosmologists (scientists who study the universe) have an interesting way to make the idea work. They say that way back at...
A wormhole is a kind of passage between two distant places in our universe that shortens the time it takes to travel from one point to the other. Instead of taking millions of years to travel from one galaxy to another, you could theoretically (under the right conditions) cut the time down to hours or minutes with a wormhole. These mysterious structures may also help astronomers answer age-old questions about what the universe looks like.
A sci-fi favourite
Wormholes are interesting, which is why many science fiction writers use wormholes in their novels and movies. Scientists are just as captivated by them as writers are. While researchers have never found a wormhole, scientists often see wormholes described in the solutions to important physics equations. For example, the solutions to some of famous scientist Albert Einstein’s important equations – the theory of space-time and general relativity – include wormholes. The theory of space-time and general relativity describes the shape of the universe and how stars, planets and other objects move throughout it. Because Einstein’s theory has been tested many, many times and found to be correct every time, some scientists do expect wormholes to exist somewhere.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1642519507/1726203999/articles/bogqeENnd1726213379796/9789222226.jpg]
How to make a wormhole
Other scientists think wormholes can’t possibly exist because they would be too unstable. The constant pull of gravity (the force that keeps your feet on the ground) affects every object in the universe, including Earth. So gravity would have an effect on wormholes, too. The scientists who are sceptical about wormholes say that after a short time the middle of the wormhole would collapse under its own gravity. To avoid collapsing, there would need to be some kind of force pushing outward from inside the wormhole, to counteract the force of gravity and stabilise the wormhole. Scientists are unsure what could produce this so-called “negative energy”.
If negative energy could be created, it would only be in amounts much too small to act against a wormhole’s own gravity.
So, cosmologists (scientists who study the universe) have an interesting way to make the idea work. They say that way back at...
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The Week Junior Science+nature Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 79