---
title: "Physicists Publish Instructions For DIY Wormhole"
description: "A team of astrophycisists came up with a way to construct a traversable wormhole that could fling objects or astronauts to another end of the universe."
date: "2019-08-28"
modified: "2019-08-28"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/physicists-instructions-traversable-wormhole"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "Black holes"
  - "cosmic strings"
  - "wormhole"
  - "wormholes"
---

# Physicists Publish Instructions For DIY Wormhole

![A team of astrophycisists came up with a way to construct a traversable wormhole that could fling objects or astronauts to another end of the universe.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/physicists-instructions-traversable-wormhole.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Image via dric/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

Here's a simple how-to on how to construct a traversable cosmic wormhole that could send your spaceship to the furthest reaches of space: take two charged black holes, place them back to back, and thread two cosmic strings through both. Stretch both strings to infinity and presto! You've got yourself a traversable wormhole.

Confused yet? A team of astrophycisists dreamed up this solution, which could *technically* send travelers to a distant corner of the universe, in a [preprint paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.03273>) on *arXiv* earlier this month — and Ohio State University astrophysicist Paul Sutter published a [terrific breakdown](<https://www.livescience.com/building-a-wormhole-with-cosmic-strings.html>) of the concept in *Live Science*.

The barebones: a charged black hole, which is a theoretical black hole that carries an electric charge and has an oppositely charged black hole on the other end of it, will act as our wormhole.

But there's a catch, before you decide to just jump into that wormhole: wormholes are by nature incredibly unstable. To make sure either charged end stays fully stretched out, a pair of [cosmic strings](<https://futurism.com/stringing-along-cosmic-strings>) — hypothetical, one dimensional defects in space-time — could hold them in place.

Unfortunately, cosmic strings are also not a great travelling companion.

"You never want to encounter one yourself, since they would slice you clean in half like a cosmic lightsaber, but you don't have to worry much since we're not even sure they exist, and we've never seen one out there in the universe," Sutter wrote. Phew!

While wormholes — and cosmic strings — have yet to be proven to exist, Russian physicists suggest that we [could measure](<https://phys.org/news/2018-10-physicist-wormhole.html>) their shape by looking at the ripples they leave behind in space-time.

Unfortunately, these ripples or gravitational waves could sap black holes' mass and cause them to eventually collapse in on themselves.

But the hope is that the strung-up wormhole could be stable for just enough time to send something or someone — say Matthew McConaughey's character in Christopher Nolan's 2014 space movie "Interstellar" — on a hell of a journey.

**READ MORE:** [Physicists Just Released Step-by-Step Instructions for Building a Wormhole](<https://www.livescience.com/building-a-wormhole-with-cosmic-strings.html>) \[*Live Science*\]

**More on black holes:** *[Astronomers Just Spotted One of the Biggest Black Holes Ever](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/astronomers-biggest-black-hole>)*

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)