What is a wormhole?
Q: What is a wormhole?
A: A wormhole is a theoretical passage through space creating a shortcut through time and space. It is not known whether or not they exist.
Q: How would a wormhole be created?
A: Scientists believe that if wormholes existed they could not be made following any traditional scientific methods. In order to hold a wormhole open, a form of theoretical exotic matter would be needed. Otherwise the wormhole would simply disappear very quickly after its creation.
Q: How does it appear on a 2-dimensional plane?
A: If plotted on a 2-dimensional plane, the wormhole bends the plane, like folding a paper, so that the two ends would be touching (as seen in the picture).
Q: Who first used the term "wormhole"?
A: The term 'wormhole' was first used by John Wheeler, a theoretical physicist. It is also known as an Einstein-Rosen bridge.
Q: What do researchers have for evidence of their existence?
A: Researchers have no observational evidence for wormholes.
Q: Why are they often featured in science fiction stories?
A: Wormholes are often featured in science fiction stories because they allow rapid interstellar, intergalactic, and sometimes even interuniversal travel which can enable time travel within human lifetimes.
Q: How might one use them for time travel?
A: A proposed time-travel machine using a traversable wormhole would hypothetically work by taking one entrance of the wormhole and moving it to within the gravitational field of an object that has higher gravity than the other entrance and then returning it to its original position near the other entrance; this causes time dilation which makes one end of the tunnel younger than the other as seen by an external observer but synchronized clocks at either end will remain synchronized when passing through it no matter how much movement occurs between both ends.
