The Great Escape

Ever wonder what might happen if Calista Flockhart shoved Tinky Winky the Teletubby into a cosmic wormhole?

Until now, the scientific consensus was that the result would be decidedly grim. This month, though, two respected quantum physicists detailed a possible way to safely traverse these theoretical shortcuts to other parts of the universe.

The authors--Hisa-aki Shinkai from Japan’s Riken Institute of Physical and Chemical Research and Sean Hayward from Korea’s Ewha Womans University--are the first scientists to bravely venture where only Trekkies and other science-fiction buffs have gone before. Their mathematical model examined what might happen if someone were to use the wormholes that supposedly exist all around us to get themselves or some object from point A to Z. Initially, their calculations showed that such matter would instantly become toast. It would generate so much “positive energy” that the wormhole would collapse into a crushingly dense black hole. Hayward and Shinkai persevered, however, and came up with a novel way of using “negative energy” to keep the portal propped open.

If their ingenious key ends up working, the possibilities are boggling.

Cash-strapped NASA could charge wealthy wormhole wanderers at least the $20 million that South African businessman Dennis Tito reportedly shelled out for a ticket to the International Space Station last year. Companies like Enron could dump their accounting ledgers straight into oblivion, sidestepping the shredders. There might even be room for all those ‘60s-style polyester suits that the Melrose hipsters claim are making a “retro chic” comeback.

Of course, it will be some time before those scenarios are even remotely possible. But given that wormholes seem the appropriate place for so many people and things, perhaps there’s comfort to be found in their theoretical abundance. Come to think of it, maybe they explain why that thin, bearded Saudi guy with the girlish voice and deceptively gentle eyes has been so elusive of late.