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Short Wave

Could Wormholes Exist?

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 β€’ 6K Ratings

πŸ—“οΈ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In science fiction, wormholes are hyperspace subway tubes linking one part of a galaxy directly to another, distant point. But could they actually exist? To find out, we talk to theoretical physicist Ron Gamble, who says wormholes aren't just a matter of science fiction β€” and they have big implications about the shape of space itself.

Want to hear about more hypotheticals physicists have to confront in their work? Email us at [email protected] β€” we might turn your idea into a whole episode!

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Transcript

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0:00.0

This message comes from Nature on PBS, producers of Going Wild with Dr. Ray Wyn Grant.

0:06.4

Back for a brand new season, Going Wild highlights champions of nature and what led them to create change within themselves and the natural world.

0:15.8

Follow Going Wild wherever you get your podcasts.

0:19.6

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

0:25.0

Space. I love it and the things inside of it. Us, of course, stars and galaxies I studied,

0:31.4

and I even love the other cool hypothetical stuff that mostly lives in science fiction,

0:36.5

like wormholes.

0:39.4

Wormholes are a funky but possible solution to Albert Einstein's famous equations for the

0:44.7

theory of general relativity. These theoretical cosmic portals can shorten a trip from hundreds of

0:50.5

light years to minutes. Wormholes have been a mainstay of transportation in movies like Interstellar.

0:56.2

That's it. That's the wormhole.

0:58.6

And TV shows like my favorite, Star Trek.

1:01.4

The aliens who live in the wormhole, as you call them.

1:04.3

Which Ron Campbell says is not far off from how scientists think about these wormholes.

1:08.4

It's very much like a bridge.

1:10.3

You can do this thought experiment yourself.

1:13.0

You take a sheet of paper.

1:14.6

You fold it kind of like in half and you poke a pencil hole right through the middle.

1:19.7

And that is essentially a wormhole.

1:21.4

It connects two points in space and time together.

1:25.4

Ron's a theoretical physicist, and he wrote his PhD on funky solutions to Einstein's

1:30.3

equations for general relativity, like wormholes.

...

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