Monica was an inquisitive fifteen-year-old girl who was always in the pursuit of learning more and experimenting with various concepts. She was a very bold teen who never backed down to a challenge and always questioned age-old beliefs and primitive religious ideologies. On a fine Saturday afternoon, Monica finished her assignment that encompassed the core concepts of Einstein’s theory of relativity. She was fascinated by the theory of interstellar travel through Einstein’s Rosen Bridge, popularly known as wormholes. She wanted to know more about this concept, so she turned to her father for an explanation.
Monica’s father, Richard, was a theoretical astrophysics and cosmologist who often kindled Monica’s interest in Physics and Astronomy. He always made it a point to address his daughter’s queries patiently despite his busy schedule.
What are Wormholes?
Monica asked, “Hey dad, I have been looking into the concept of Einstein’s Rosen Bridge but couldn’t make heads or tails of it! Can you please explain?”
Richard replied with a sparkle of excitement in his eyes, “Wow, Monica, I am so glad that you are interested to learn more about this wonderful theory. It would be a pleasure for me to explain this to you.”
He continued, “Monica, to understand the theory about wormholes, you need first to know Einstein’s theory of general relativity and its relevance to the Rosen Bridge. Since general relativity states that the region of space and time can be bent and is not static, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosan further elaborated on the idea. They proposed the existence of space-time through bridges that connect two different points in space-time. This bridge was coined as the Einstein Rosen bridge.”
“I understood the concept of the bridge, dad. Can you elaborate on the use of this bridge?” Asked Monica.
“Sure honey, since these bridges connect two different points in space-time, it could reduce the travel time drastically. If you are looking to travel to a place that is several lightyears away, wormholes can make your journey much faster.”
Monica asked, “But dad, don’t the laws of physics state that no object of mass can travel at or faster than the speed of light?”
“Yes, that’s right, dear, but when it comes to the concept of wormholes, it establishes a portal that directly ships you to another point in space-time in an instant. It is kind of like taking a shortcut to your favourite fast-food place.”
Are there White Holes?
“Wow, dad, that was quite insightful. Can you please tell me more about the principle of how wormholes function?” asked Monica.
The Einstein Rosen bridge theory was further expanded where massive blackholes play a vital role in linking two areas of space. Richard explained, “as we have seen from Einstein’s theory of relativity about black holes, matter and light that gets sucked into the black hole is spat out through a white hole in another region of space or even another dimension, perhaps even a multiverse.”
Monica said, “sounds so cool, dad. Does that mean that white holes exist?”
“No honey, the existence of white holes and wormholes are only on paper; they haven’t been proven. No telescope has spotted a region in space where matter and light are being emitted. Also, there is no proof that black holes are portals to other regions in space or another universe; it is all just speculation.”
The Scope of Wormholes
“Oh, I see,” said Monica with a disappointed expression on her face. “So, let’s assume that wormholes are real; if so, what are they useful for?”
Richard replied, “sweetheart, if wormholes are real, they can be used for a wide variety of interstellar travel and travel between galaxies in a zap.” They would be like shortcuts to destinations that would normally take hundreds of years to reach, that is assuming that we could travel at the speed of light. Even though an object would travel slower than light inside the wormhole, it would reach a destination before light itself, as the region inside a wormhole is like taking a very easy shortcut to a location.
“Oh my god, that is so amazing, dad! Hey, tell me what expert scientists have to say about wormholes? Monica said with her eyes filled with excitement.”
“Did you know that several scientists have theorized some concepts that could suggest that wormholes could exist? Yeah, Stephen Hawking says that wormholes could be all around us, but they would appear microscopically small. Within every piece of matter, including time itself, there could be very small holes and wrinkles that are smaller than an atom. Due to them being so tiny, there is no possible way to travel between or manipulate them.”
Magnetic Wormholes
Monica said, “This is really fascinating, dad. Are there other types of wormholes?”
Richard said, “the Einstein Rosen bridge is the theory of a gravitational wormhole, whereas another type of wormhole is known as a magnetic wormhole. A magnetic field can be transferred from one place to another through a magnetically non-detectable path in a magnetic wormhole. Hey, did you know that physicists in Spain were able to create a magnetic wormhole in 2015? They created a tunnel that enabled a magnetic field to disappear at one point in space and reappear at another. Using metasurfaces and metamaterials, they constructed a tunnel that was able to achieve this near unimaginable feat.”
“Thanks for this amazing insight dad, you have made the theory of wormholes play like a documentary movie in front of my eyes. I would love to submit an article explaining this concept for my science project.”
“That’s my girl, remember Monica, the field of science is always ever-evolving, who knows, in the future, we could probably stumble into some mind-blowing evidence that could prove things which are far beyond our current knowledge. Always explore, don’t limit the potential of your brain to mere bookish knowledge, and expand your thinking beyond the horizons of humankind.”
Space Age 