This interactive wormhole simulation renders a conceptual "embedding diagram" — the classic science-illustration style used to visualize how a traversable wormhole's spacetime geometry might look — with two funnel-shaped mouths connected by a throat, a warped grid overlay, and a light ray you can send crossing from one mouth to the other. Wormholes are theoretical solutions to Einstein's general relativity field equations and have never been observed; this tool is for building geometric intuition, not depicting a confirmed phenomenon.
The diagram is a 2D embedding of a wormhole's spatial geometry, in the tradition of the Flamm paraboloid used to visualize the Schwarzschild solution and later extended by Morris and Thorne to traversable wormholes. Two asymptotically flat regions ("mouths") are joined by a narrow "throat," and the grid lines bend to represent curved spacetime rather than literal physical bending of space you could see from outside.
Drag the throat radius slider to widen or narrow the connecting passage, increase curvature/warp intensity to see the funnels flare more sharply near the throat, and pull the mouth-separation slider to lengthen or shorten the conceptual tube between the two mouths. Click "Send object through throat" to animate a light ray traveling from Mouth A through the throat to Mouth B.
A traversable wormhole, as described by the Morris-Thorne metric, would require "exotic matter" with negative energy density to hold its throat open against collapse — a form of matter never observed in nature, which is a major reason physicists consider real traversable wormholes highly speculative.
A wormhole, in general relativity, is a hypothetical shortcut through spacetime connecting two distant points — or even two different universes — via a narrow "throat." The idea originates from Einstein and Nathan Rosen's 1935 analysis of the Schwarzschild solution, which produced a bridge-like structure now called an Einstein-Rosen bridge. That original bridge, however, is not traversable: it pinches off and collapses faster than anything, even light, could cross it.
In 1988, physicists Michael Morris and Kip Thorne showed that a traversable wormhole is mathematically permitted by general relativity, but only if its throat is held open by "exotic matter" possessing negative energy density — a requirement no known form of ordinary matter satisfies. This simulation visualizes the geometry described by such solutions as a 2D embedding diagram: two funnel-shaped mouths, each representing a region of curved space, joined by a throat whose width and curvature you can adjust, with a light ray animated crossing from one side to the other purely to illustrate the geometric shortcut a traversable wormhole would represent — not to claim any such object has been detected.
The rings and spokes model a radial "embedding function" that flares outward away from the throat, similar to the Flamm paraboloid used to depict curved space around a mass, generalized here to two mouths joined by a throat as in the Morris-Thorne metric.
Throat radius sets the narrowest width of the passage; curvature/warp intensity controls how sharply the funnels flare near the throat; mouth separation lengthens or shortens the conceptual tube; the animate toggle sends a light ray traveling through from Mouth A to Mouth B.
No wormhole of any kind has ever been observed. They remain a mathematically consistent but entirely theoretical prediction of general relativity, requiring exotic negative-energy matter to stay open if they were ever traversable.
No. Wormholes are solutions that emerge mathematically from Einstein's field equations of general relativity, but no observational evidence for any wormhole has ever been found. They remain a theoretical construct used to explore what the equations of relativity permit, not a confirmed astronomical phenomenon.
It is the original 1935 mathematical description by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen of a bridge-like structure connecting two regions of spacetime within the Schwarzschild black hole solution. This bridge pinches off and collapses so quickly that nothing, not even light, could cross it, making it non-traversable.
According to the Morris-Thorne metric developed in 1988, a traversable wormhole's throat must be held open by "exotic matter" with negative energy density, a substance that violates the classical energy conditions of general relativity and has never been observed in the required quantities, if it exists at all.
The funnel shapes are a 2D "embedding diagram," a standard technique in general relativity for visualizing curved spatial geometry by embedding a 2D slice of curved space into a flat 3D picture, similar to how a rubber-sheet analogy depicts gravitational curvature. It is a visualization aid, not a literal depiction of extra spatial dimensions.
It shares the same underlying general-relativity concepts that inspired those depictions, since Interstellar's wormhole visuals were developed with input from physicist Kip Thorne, one of the authors of the traversable wormhole theory. This simulation is a simplified 2D embedding diagram rather than a full ray-traced 3D rendering, but it draws on the same real physics: curved spacetime, a throat connecting two regions, and the theoretical need for exotic matter to keep it open.