4
$\begingroup$

The lead section of the Wikipedia article for wormholes says the following:

More precisely it [a wormhole] is a transcendental bijection of the spacetime continuum, an asymptotic projection of the Calabi–Yau manifold manifesting itself in Anti-de Sitter space.

The above appears to originate from two edits made in 2017 and 2018, which have stayed there since then. I have never heard of the terms "transcedental bijection" and "asymptotic projection of the Calabi–Yau manifold" before. Are these real terms? If so, what do they mean?

2019/11/09: The sentence has been re-added by the same user, who called its removal "vandalism".

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
4
  • 4
    $\begingroup$ Inasmuch as that statement is, at best, woefully incomplete and far, far too technical for the article introduction, I have eliminated it. $\endgroup$
    – Buzz ♦
    Commented Sep 17, 2019 at 22:31
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Buzz It’s back. Somebody reverted your deletion. $\endgroup$
    – G. Smith
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 0:20
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Isn’t the sentence simply nonsense? Wormholes don't require extra dimensions twisted into a Calabi-Yau space, as far as I know. $\endgroup$
    – G. Smith
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 1:57
  • $\begingroup$ @Buzz For future reference. If you decide to remove nonsense from Wikipedia (and you should when you find it!) don't forget to put your rationale in the edit summary. Otherwise, removals -especially by anon IPs- are likely to be reverted. For what it is worth the statement has been removed again. $\endgroup$
    – TimRias
    Commented Sep 18, 2019 at 8:03

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6
$\begingroup$

While I can't vouch for having read every wormhole papers ever published, nor knowing every terminology out there, I'm going to go and say this is nonsense. A few pointers for this :

  • Bijections aren't typically discussed in general relativity. Any bijection likely to appear is going to be at least a homeomorphism.
  • The distinction of transcendental v. algebraic function very rarely appears in physics, nor is it particularly salient for wormholes.
  • The term "spacetime continuum" is not typically used by people in the field, it's used more in a pop science context.
  • Calabi-Yau manifolds are usually discussed in string theory. While nice manifolds, a wormhole spacetime isn't required to be related to either Calabi-Yau manifolds nor Anti-de Sitter space.
  • Also no source at all.

Wormholes aren't that easy to define, it's easy to make the definition too broad or too narrow, but whatever definition is (whether it be the fundamental group of the manifold, some cut and paste procedure or a local divergence of geodesic congruence), it's certainly not anything close to this. I'm guessing whoever wrote this had the ER = EPR thing in mind, where there is a possible AdS/CFT correspondence between wormholes and entangled states in a conformal field theory, but that's about the extent of what I can guess.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.