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Marty McFly and Dr. Emmet Brown bend time and space in a DeLorean DMC-12. Bill and Ted do it in a telephone booth. Others travel through time and space using a cabinet, a door, or a well. You’ve been having a marathon of “Back to the Future” trilogy and “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and are thinking if time travel is possible. Well, it might surprise you to know that time travel does not defy the laws of physics. So it is not impossible to be transported to another time or universe. Wormholes may provide you with better understanding of time travel. But first, it is important that you know the basics of Albert Einstein’s relativity theory.

What is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?

Einstein’s seemingly simple formula or his relativity theory, E = mc2, is long and complicated. In a nutshell, relativity holds that the speed of light is a constant from all frames of reference. As you approach the speed of light, time (calculated by others) slows down and approaches zero, and distances (travelled by you) approach zero, and your mass (measured by observers) increases. But you would not notice a thing if you travel the speed of light. In addition, travelling near large masses (such as the Earth and the Sun) increases your acceleration due to gravity, slows time down, and seemingly shortens distances.

What is a wormhole?

With Einstein’s discovery of relativity came wormholes and the possibility that time travel might come true. A wormhole is a hypothetical tube that connects two different regions in spacetime. Travelling through it could take you less time than travelling between the same starting point and ending point in normal space. We can use the analogy of a worm that takes a shortcut from a point over an apple’s skin to the opposite side of the fruit by travelling through its center, instead of travelling the entire distance around.

What are the different types of wormholes?

In theory, there are a number of different types of wormholes within the bounds of physics. In inter-universe wormholes both ends exist in different universe; a point of a universe is connected with another point of another universe. This kind of wormhole gives rise to the hypothesis that it can be used to travel to another parallel universe. On the other hand, in intra-universe wormholes both ends exist in the same universe; a point of a universe is connected with another point of the same universe.

Another type of wormhole is Schwarzschild wormhole, one that connects (usually closed) universes.. Traversable wormholes are types of Lorentzian wormholes that would enable humans to travel from one end to the other. Finally, Euclidean wormholes are types of wormholes that are studied in particle physics.

What would happen if you enter a wormhole?

Granted that you discovered a wormhole and took a trip through it, scientists are uncertain about its effect on a person. Many suggest that a wormhole would not be stable enough for the length of the travel. Others believe that if a wormhole did remain stable, a person may be changed in some ways and could suffer from brain damage or heart attack, and possibly even death.

 

© Sciencetips 2008