Wormholes in fiction
An Einstein–Rosen bridge, or wormhole, is a postulated method, within the general theory of relativity, of moving from one point in space to another without crossing the space between. Wormholes are a popular feature of science fiction as they allow faster-than-light interstellar travel within human timescales.
A related concept in various fictional genres is the portable hole. While there's no clear demarcation between the two, this article deals with fictional, but pseudo-scientific, treatments of faster-than-light travel through space.
A jumpgate is a fictional device able to create an Einstein–Rosen bridge portal, allowing fast travel between two points in space.
In franchises
''Stargate'' franchise
Wormholes are also the principal means of space travel in the Stargate movie and the spin-off television series, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe, to the point where it was called the franchise that is "far and away most identified with wormholes".The central plot device of the programs is an ancient transportation network consisting of the ring-shaped devices known as Stargates, which generate artificial wormholes that allow one-way matter transmission and two-way radio communication between gates when the correct spatial coordinates are "dialed". However, for some reason not yet explained, the water-like event horizon breaks down the matter and converts it into energy for transport through the wormhole, restoring it into its original state at the destination. This would explain why electromagnetic energy can travel both ways — it doesn't have to be converted.
The one-way rule may be caused by the Stargates themselves: as a Gate may only be capable of creating an event-horizon that either breaks down or reconstitutes matter, but not both. It does serve as a very useful plot device: when one wants to return to the other end one must close the original wormhole and "redial", which means one needs access to the dialing device. The one-way nature of the Stargates helps to defend the gate from unwanted incursions. Also, Stargates can sustain an artificial wormhole for only 38 minutes. It's possible to keep it active for a longer period, but it would take immense amounts of energy. The wormholes generated by the Stargates are based on the misconception that wormholes in 3D space have 2D event horizons, but a proper visualization of a wormhole in 3D space would be a spherical event horizon.
''Babylon 5'' and ''Crusade''
In television series Babylon 5 and its spin-off series Crusade, jump points are artificial wormholes that serve as entrances and exits to hyperspace, allowing for faster-than-light travel. Jump points can either be created by larger ships or by standalone jumpgates. The more energy used to create the wormhole, the larger the opening will be, so the stand-alone gates are used for heavily trafficked, predetermined interstellar routes, while engines on ships serve as a means of travel primarily for that ship and its support vessels, allowing them to enter and exit hyperspace where a jumpgate is not conveniently close by in normal space.Three distinct types of wormhole are characterized in the series and its sequel stories.
The jump points created by both the jumpgates and large vessels characterize a Lorentzian traversable wormhole with intra-universal endpoints. In the series, however, rather than the exiting endpoint being defined at the time of entry, the ship enters non-Euclidean hyperspace within which tachyon beacons mark possible endpoint destinations in real space. A ship may enter hyperspace with no particular destination, linger or hide there before returning to normal space, even be lost irretrievably should it become unable to exit into normal space.
As established in the episode "Movements of Fire and Shadow", jumpgates are considered neutral territory. Thus, it would be a gross violation of rules of engagement to attack them directly, as the jumpgate network is needed by every spacefaring race. However it is a common wartime tactic for opponents to program their jumpgates to deny access by any enemy ships, thus forcing those forces to open their own jump points.
The second type of wormhole depicted in the series is temporal in nature, as when the Great Machine buried miles below the surface of Epsilon Eridani III, a massive alien complex for the generation and control of power on a solar scale, displaces Babylon 4 1000 years into the past, 24 hours after it becomes fully functional, taking Commander Sinclair with it into the past to begin preparations a millennium in advance for the coming war with the Shadows, creating a temporal paradox.
The third type of wormhole appears in the series sequel , as an ancient Vorlon artifact is found drifting in hyperspace and is recovered and brought back into normal space. The device is revealed to be a jumpgate for the creation of an extra-universal Lorentzian wormhole, which opens into a universe dominated by an incredibly powerful and ruthlessly violent alien race.
''Farscape''
The television series Farscape features an American astronaut who accidentally gets shot through a wormhole and ends up in a distant part of the universe, and also features the use of wormholes to reach other universes and as weapons of mass destruction.Wormholes are the cause of John Crichton's presence in the far reaches of our galaxy and the focus of an arms race of different alien species attempting to obtain Crichton's perceived ability to control them. Crichton's brain was secretly implanted with knowledge of wormhole technology by one of the last members of an ancient alien species. Later, an alien interrogator discovers the existence of the hidden information and thus Crichton becomes embroiled in interstellar politics and warfare while being pursued by all sides. Unable to directly access the information, Crichton is able to subconsciously foretell when and where wormholes will form and is able to safely travel through them. By the end of the series, he eventually works out some of the science and is able to create his own wormholes.
''Star Trek'' franchise
- Objects with the features similar to wormholes were featured in episodes of ', although the word wormhole was not used. The gateway featured in the episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", for example, was a gateway through time that operates somewhat similar to a wormhole.
- Early in the storyline of ', an antimatter imbalance in the refitted Enterprise starship's warp drive power systems creates an unstable ship-generated wormhole directly ahead of the vessel, threatening to rip the starship apart partially through its increasingly severe time dilation effects, until Commander Pavel Chekov fires a photon torpedo to blast apart a sizable asteroid that was pulled in with the starship, destabilizing the wormhole effect and throwing the Enterprise clear as it slowed to sub-light velocities. Near the end of the film, Willard Decker recalls that "Voyager 6" disappeared into what they used to call a "black hole". At one time, black holes in science fiction were often endowed with the traits of wormholes. This has for the most part disappeared as a black hole isn't necessarily a hole in space but a dense mass and the visible vortex effect often associated with black holes is merely the accretion disk of visible matter being drawn toward it. Decker's line is most likely to inform that it was probably a wormhole that Voyager 6 entered, although the intense gravity of a black hole does warp the fabric of spacetime.
- The setting of the television series is a space station, Deep Space 9, located near the artificially-created Bajoran wormhole. This wormhole is unique in the Star Trek universe because of its stability. In an earlier episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation it was established that wormholes are generally unstable on one or both ends – either the end move erratically or they do not open reliably. The Bajoran wormhole is stationary on both ends and opens consistently. It provides passage to the distant Gamma Quadrant, opening a gate to starships that extends far beyond the reach normally attainable, is the source of a severe threat to the Alpha Quadrant from an empire called the Dominion, and is home to a group of non-physical life forms which make contact with Commander Benjamin Sisko and have also interacted with the Bajorans in the past. Discovered at the start of the series, the existence of the wormhole and the various consequences of its discovery elevate the strategic importance of the space station and is a major factor in most of the overarching plots over the course of the series.
- In Star Trek: Voyager, an alien scientist explains that the term wormhole is often used as a layman's term and describes various spatial anomalies. From this it follows that wormholes in Star Trek represent completely different concepts and often only superficially have to do with real predicted wormholes.
- In the 2009 Star Trek film, red matter is used to create artificial black holes. A large one acts a conduit between spacetime and sends Spock and Nero back in time.
''Doctor Who''
- The Rift which appears in the long-running British science-fiction series Doctor Who and its spin-off Torchwood is a wormhole. One of its mouths is located in Cardiff Bay, Wales and the other floats freely throughout space-time. It is the central plot device in the latter show.
- In "Planet of the Dead", a wormhole transports a London double-decker bus to a barren, desert-like planet. The wormhole could only be navigated safely through by a metal object, and human tissue is not meant for inter-space travel, as demonstrated by the bus driver, who is burnt to the bones on attempting to get back to Earth.
[Marvel Cinematic Universe]
- In the 2011 film Thor, based on the Marvel Comics character, reimagines the mythical Bifrost Bridge as a wormhole, also in this case specifically referred to as an Einstein–Rosen Bridge, which is opened and closed by the gatekeeper, Heimdall, to enable travel between the Nine Realms.
- In the 2012 film The Avengers, which also takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Tesseract is shown to be capable of opening wormholes into space, allowing the Chitauri to invade New York.
- Also, in the 2013 film ' based on the same character above, the mythical Bifrost, among another secret passage, reappears referring the Einstein–Rosen Bridge, which allows the main character of the movie and his friends the ability to travel between the different realms of Yggdrasil. Additionally, Jane Foster and her team also encounter a small wormhole in London, which connects to a different realm. Her passing through this wormhole and subsequent contact with The Aether kick-starts the plot.
- In the 2016 film Doctor Strange, Doctor Strange and others using a magical device called a Sling Ring to open wormholes at will. Early on Doctor Strange uses this to steal books about magic from the library.
- In the 2017 film ', Thor ends up in Sakaar, a garbage planet surrounded by wormholes. The largest one, referred to as the Devil's Anus by locals, is described by Bruce Banner as "a collapsing Neutron Star within an Einstein-Rosen Bridge".
- In the 2018 film , once Thanos takes the Space Stone from the Tesseract, he can generate wormholes at will.
In literature
| Title | Author | Year | Description |
| "The Meteor Girl" | Jack Williamson | 1931 | In the short story the protagonist creates a "distortion of space-time coordinates" from the effect scientific equipment has on a recently crashed meteor – which is energized with a mystery force. He uses the window in space-time and his knowledge of Einstein's relativity equations to rescue his fiancée from a shipwreck four thousand miles away and twelve hours and 40 minutes in the future. |
| The Forever War | Joe Haldeman | 1974 | In the classic war novel interstellar travel is achieved through gateways located at collapsars. This is an early word for a black hole, and the novel refers to the theory that black holes may contain Einstein–Rosen Bridges. |
| Contact | Carl Sagan | 1985 | In the novel a crew of five humans make a trip to the center of the Milky Way galaxy through a transportation system consisting of a series of wormholes. The novel is notable in that Kip Thorne advised Sagan on the possibilities of wormholes. Likewise, wormholes are also central to the film version. |
| Vorkosigan Saga | Lois McMaster Bujold | 1986 | In the series naturally occurring wormholes form the basis for interstellar travel. The world of Barrayar was isolated from the rest of human civilization for centuries after the connecting wormhole collapsed, until a new route was discovered, and control over wormhole routes and jumps is the frequent subject of political plots and military campaigns. |
| Xeelee series | Stephen Baxter | 1989 | In the fictional world human beings use wormholes to traverse the solar system. A wormhole is also used in this universe to put a probe into the sun. In his book Ring, the Xeelee construct a gigantic wormhole into a different universe which they use to escape the onslaught of the Photino birds. |
| Honorverse series | David Weber | 1994 | In this fictional universe, wormholes have an important impact in the economy of the different star nations, as it greatly reduces travel time between two different points. The Star Kingdom of Manticore, to which the main character belongs, is a powerful economic entity thanks to the Manticore Junction, a set of six wormholes, close to Manticore's binary system, that ensure much travel goes through their system. It also can play a role in the military side of things, but usage of the wormhole destabilizes it for a time proportional to the size of the starship using it. |
| His Dark Materials | Philip Pullman | 1995 | Wormholes are an immensely important plot device in the trilogy, with one first discovered by protagonist Will Parry, when fleeing from his home after an accidental murder; he finds a window in the air in an Oxford street which leads to a totally different universe, the town of Cittagazze. In the rest of the trilogy, the other main characters use wormholes in the form of these extradimensional windows in order to travel "between worlds" and thus speed their journeys. |
| Einstein's Bridge | John G. Cramer | 1997 | The novel features travel via wormholes between alternate universes. |
| Diaspora | Greg Egan | 1997 | The novel features scientifically well founded depictions of wormholes. |
| Timeline | Michael Crichton | 1999 | In the novel traversable wormholes are used for time travel along with the theory of quantum foam. |
| The Light of Other Days | Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter | 2000 | The novel discusses the problems which arise when a wormhole is used for faster-than-light communication. In the novel the authors suggest that wormholes can join points distant either in time or in space and postulate a world completely devoid of privacy as wormholes are increasingly used to spy on anyone at any time in the world's history. |
| Commonwealth Saga | Peter F. Hamilton | 2002 | The series describes how wormhole technology could be used to explore, colonize and connect to other worlds without having to resort to traditional travel via starships. This technology is the basis of the formation of the titular Intersolar Commonwealth, and is used so extensively that it is possible to ride trains between the planets of the Commonwealth. |
| The Algebraist | Iain M. Banks | 2004 | In the novel traversable wormholes can be artificially created and are a central factor/resource in the stratification of space-faring civilizations. |
| The Power of Five series | Anthony Horowitz | 2005 | In the series wormholes are an important plot device: the Gatekeepers can travel anywhere they wish in the world instantly by using wormholes in the form of doors found in holy places such as churches, and the wormholes are also used as an important plot device in Book Two of the series, Evil Star, this time for a much more sinister purpose; the Old Ones, the antagonists, use the Nazca Lines as a gigantic wormhole to unlock the Lines in order to escape onto the Earth. |
| House of Suns | Alastair Reynolds | 2008 | The novel features a wormhole to Andromeda. One main character also alludes to other wormhole mouths leading to galaxies in the Local Group and beyond. In the books, all wormhole-linked galaxies are cloaked by Absences, which prevent information escaping the galaxy and thus protecting causality from being violated by FTL travel. |
| Palimpsest | Charles Stross | 2009 | An original story in the 2009 collection – which won the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Novella – the protagonist creates and uses temporary wormholes to travel through both space and time. |
| "Bright Moment" | Daniel Marcus | 2011 | The short story includes a wormhole for interstellar travel, which can be collapsed to what the story calls a singularity by a multi Gigaton thermonuclear explosion. The story first appeared in F&SF, and was later narrated on the Escape Pod podcast, episode 421. |
| The Expanse | James S.A Corey | 2012 | A virus shot at the Solar System millions of years ago constructs a ring in space that creates a wormhole to another dimension which is a "hub" of 1373 wormholes that lead to other solar systems. |
| Waste of Space | Gina Damico | 2017 | This young-adult novel involves a secretive group of scientists dubbed NASAW whose experiments create a wormhole that a protagonist travels through. |