A ‘wormhole’, first proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen in 1935, is a theoretical ‘bridge’ through folded space-time, which could provide a means of traversing large distances instantaneously.
Mathematically, wormholes appear to be highly unstable and would likely collapse as soon as they form, as well as being vanishingly small. And they can only form with so-called ‘eternal’ black holes – ones which do not interact with matter or lose mass through Hawking radiation.
So, most scientists would admit that wormholes, although a useful and interesting theoretical possibility, probably don’t exist in reality.
Read more:
- Is there a wormhole hiding at the centre of the Milky Way?
- What is a black hole and how did we discover them?
- Is it theoretically possible to create a wormhole on Earth?
- Are black holes always found at the centre of galaxies?
Asked by: Tam McMillan, Fife
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