According to new research, it’s possible that we could have wormholes large and stable enough for humans to be able to travel to distant stars.
Previously, per Einstein’s theory of relativity, it was thought that wormholes could only be microscopic in size and would collapse quickly. Moreover, traveling through the wormhole would take as long as normal travel — or longer — which totally ruins the point of traveling via a wormhole.
But according to Juan Maldacena, the Carl P. Feinberg Professor of theoretical physics from the Institute of Advanced Study, and Alexey Milekhin, a graduate astrophysics student at Princeton University, large and stable wormholes are theoretically possible in quantum physics.
The key concepts involved are negative energy and five-dimensional warped geometry theory.
It wouldn’t be all smooth sailing, though. We’d have to be careful to avoid being ripped apart by tidal forces. And then there’s the time dilation.
“For astronauts going through the wormhole it would take only one second of their time to travel 10,000 light-year distance,” the scientists told Universe Today.
But when they get to the other side, they would find that more than 10,000 years had passed for everyone else.
On the plus side, the trip wouldn’t take much fuel. “Gravity accelerates and decelerates the spaceship,” the scientists said.
MetaStellar editor and publisher Maria Korolov is a science fiction novelist, writing stories set in a future virtual world. And, during the day, she is an award-winning freelance technology journalist who covers artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and enterprise virtual reality. See her Amazon author page here and follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and check out her latest videos on the Maria Korolov YouTube channel. Email her at maria@metastellar.com. She is also the editor and publisher of Hypergrid Business, one of the top global sites covering virtual reality.