Christopher Nolan's new blockbuster "Interstellar" may please both film buffs and scientists alike, as the wormhole travel central to the plot may actually be possible.
Speaking with Space.com, Kip Thorne, an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology, said such science fits with Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but wormhole travel will probably stay in works of fiction for the time being.
A leading global authority on black holes and relativity, Thorne said a real-life wormhole would be far too unstable to travel through. Like in the film, a wormhole would allow space travelers get from our own galaxy to another one far across the universe in a short amount of time.
"The jury is not in, so we just don't know," he told Space.com. "But there are very strong indications that wormholes that a human could travel through are forbidden by the laws of physics. That's sad, that's unfortunate, but that's the direction in which things are pointing.
"Wormholes - if you don't have something threading through them to hold them open - the walls will basically collapse so fast that nothing can go through them."
Thorne got an intimate look at the making of the film, as he served as an adviser and executive producer. Thorne has also published a book, aptly titled "The Science of Interstellar," a number-one best seller on Amazon.
"So it does happen in physics," Thorne told Space.com. "But we have very strong, but not firm, indications that you can never get enough negative energy that repels and keeps the wormhole's walls open; you can never get enough to do that.
"The modern research on the physics of wormholes largely stems from the movie 'Contact,' from conversations I had with [renowned late scientist] Carl Sagan - actually, when he was writing his novel 'Contact.'"
