Working at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study, Albert Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen submitted a paper describing solutions to general relativity that modeled particles as bridges in spacetime, later dubbed 'Einstein-Rosen bridges.' The concept, essentially a mathematical wormhole, became a staple of theoretical physics and science fiction alike.
Albert Einstein, by the mid-1930s settled at Princeton's newly formed Institute for Advanced Study after fleeing Nazi Germany, continued to wrestle with problems left unresolved by general relativity, particularly how to describe elementary particles within the smooth geometry of spacetime rather than as separate point-like singularities. Working with the young physicist Nathan Rosen, he explored solutions in which two regions of spacetime were connected by a throat-like structure.
Their paper, submitted around February 28, 1935, and published that July in Physical Review, presented what became known as the Einstein-Rosen bridge: a mathematical construction connecting two sheets of spacetime, effectively a wormhole, intended originally as a model for a particle without a true singularity at its core.
The pair had little interest in interstellar travel; their motivation was purely a search for a unified, singularity-free description of matter within relativity. Decades later, physicists including John Wheeler picked up the concept, coining the term 'wormhole' and exploring its geometry more seriously, while the idea filtered into popular culture as a staple plot device for science fiction. The Einstein-Rosen paper remains a foundational reference point whenever physicists discuss the theoretical possibility, however remote, of shortcuts through spacetime.
Key people: Albert Einstein, Nathan Rosen