by Ogo A. Bellard

Created on: August 29, 2007

In 1935 Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen using the General Theory of Relativity as their base united two theories; that of black holes and white holes, together they created a theoretical Einstein-Rosen bridge that linked two parts of space or even two universes through a tunnel. They showed that if one could traverse such a tunnel you would effectively be travelling faster than light, as you would arrive before a beam of light sent through normal space at the same time. This would include light inside the tunnel also going faster relative to the light in normal space, though it would still only be travelling at the speed of light within the tunnel.

In 1962 John Wheeler coined the general term wormhole to encompass, the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, Lorentzian and Schwarzschild wormholes, whilst proving that this type of wormhole would be unstable and therefore practically infeasible. 26 years later two men spurred by Carl Sagan proposed a way to keep the wormhole open.

Kip Thorne and Mike Morris postulated the Morris-Thorne Wormhole and published their theory in 1988. Carl Sagan had put it to Kip and his class to create an explanation behind a possible stable wormhole that he would employ as a key plot device in the book Contact. What they came up with was Exotic Matter or Antimatter which was repelled rather than attracted to gravity. If used in rings they could keep each side of the wormhole open and accessible. This was theoretically proven through calculation, and enabled Carl Sagan's lead character to travel halfway across the universe, meet with an advanced civilisation, and travel back again, in what seemed like seconds on Earth. There was only one problem with the Morris-Thorne wormhole, where to find or make enough Exotic Matter to actually make this feasible.

In 2003 Matt Visser managed to calculate the required amount of Exotic Matter that would be needed to keep a wormhole open.

"The total quantity of ANEC-violating matter can be made infinitesimally small" -Matt Visser

This was calculated using Quantum Theory that gives rise to quantum fluctuations or sub atomic particles and their corresponding anti-particles popping in and out of existence in the vacuum of empty space. What this means is that at the quantum level there is no vacuum but rather:

"No point is more central than this, that empty space is not empty. It is the seat of the most violent physics."- John A. Wheeler

Matt Visser and his colleagues believed if you could suppress this hyper active state

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