Aug 4, 2025 07:05 PM
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sci...-heres-why
EXCERPTS: As of now, scientists don’t know enough about the characteristics of wormholes to confidently identify them, such as the types of situations that would create a wormhole, the properties of a wormhole, and how to detect said properties.
In some ways, a wormhole might look like a black hole. One might also have an event horizon, a theoretical boundary beyond a black hole where no radiation or light can escape. It’s thought that the impact of a wormhole would depend on its mass, which could dictate how things behave or orbit outside of and around it.
One key feature is that a wormhole would look like a sphere, not a hole, says Lupsasca, adding that to travel through a wormhole would be like “getting sucked into a ball and then expelled from another ball.”
Other things astrophysicists might look for in trying to find a wormhole include gravitational waves or radiation like those associated with black holes.
[...] Robert Scherrer, professor of physics at Vanderbilt University, says that wormholes are on the “edge of speculative physics.” Einstein's theory of general relativity allows for the possibility of wormholes, but there is no observational evidence to prove their existence. As such, Scherrer says they remain theoretical and “quite a bit more speculative than black holes” at that.
Einstein’s theory of relativity states that gravity, a fundamental force of attraction, is the curvature of space-time itself. Matter tells space-time how to curve, and conversely, the geometry of space-time tells matter how to move. In other words, space-time is a conceptual model that combines the dimensions of space with a fourth dimension of time.
“The main thing to keep in mind is that Einstein’s theory is incredibly promiscuous and allows all kinds of ways for space-time to be curved. In some sense, it’s possible that if you had the right kind of matter, you could produce the kind of space-time curvature that would result in a wormhole,” says Christopher Smeenk, professor of the philosophy of physics and science at Canada’s Western University.
[...] The simplest of wormholes would not be stable, meaning they would collapse very quickly and not give enough time for a person to pass through them. To stabilize a hypothetical wormhole, one would need exotic matter.
Exotic matter is a hypothetical form of matter theorized to contain unusual properties often characterized by a negative energy density, meaning it would have a negative mass or exert a repulsive gravitational force. Wormholes would require a shell of exotic matter, but just like wormholes, exotic matter has never been observed and is considered hypothetical.
“If you could somehow create that state of matter, then, according to general relativity, you could have a wormhole. But if you ask me whether that kind of matter is possible, I doubt it,” says Smeenk... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: As of now, scientists don’t know enough about the characteristics of wormholes to confidently identify them, such as the types of situations that would create a wormhole, the properties of a wormhole, and how to detect said properties.
In some ways, a wormhole might look like a black hole. One might also have an event horizon, a theoretical boundary beyond a black hole where no radiation or light can escape. It’s thought that the impact of a wormhole would depend on its mass, which could dictate how things behave or orbit outside of and around it.
One key feature is that a wormhole would look like a sphere, not a hole, says Lupsasca, adding that to travel through a wormhole would be like “getting sucked into a ball and then expelled from another ball.”
Other things astrophysicists might look for in trying to find a wormhole include gravitational waves or radiation like those associated with black holes.
[...] Robert Scherrer, professor of physics at Vanderbilt University, says that wormholes are on the “edge of speculative physics.” Einstein's theory of general relativity allows for the possibility of wormholes, but there is no observational evidence to prove their existence. As such, Scherrer says they remain theoretical and “quite a bit more speculative than black holes” at that.
Einstein’s theory of relativity states that gravity, a fundamental force of attraction, is the curvature of space-time itself. Matter tells space-time how to curve, and conversely, the geometry of space-time tells matter how to move. In other words, space-time is a conceptual model that combines the dimensions of space with a fourth dimension of time.
“The main thing to keep in mind is that Einstein’s theory is incredibly promiscuous and allows all kinds of ways for space-time to be curved. In some sense, it’s possible that if you had the right kind of matter, you could produce the kind of space-time curvature that would result in a wormhole,” says Christopher Smeenk, professor of the philosophy of physics and science at Canada’s Western University.
[...] The simplest of wormholes would not be stable, meaning they would collapse very quickly and not give enough time for a person to pass through them. To stabilize a hypothetical wormhole, one would need exotic matter.
Exotic matter is a hypothetical form of matter theorized to contain unusual properties often characterized by a negative energy density, meaning it would have a negative mass or exert a repulsive gravitational force. Wormholes would require a shell of exotic matter, but just like wormholes, exotic matter has never been observed and is considered hypothetical.
“If you could somehow create that state of matter, then, according to general relativity, you could have a wormhole. But if you ask me whether that kind of matter is possible, I doubt it,” says Smeenk... (MORE - missing details)