"General relativity ALLOWS for the existence of wormholes" .. why the "allow"?

Question

I seem to read this a lot, i don't understand why the word allow is used here like as if wormhole will not exist without Einstein theory?

Answer 1

It simply means that they are not impossible, but that we  are unable to prove whether they exist or not.

Answer 2

well that's one thing theories do, predict what can happen. it means there's a way to test the theory, in principle at least. so if you find a wormhole, it confirms theories that allow for them and falsifies theories that don't allow them (such as newtonian mechanics). as you imply, there might be many theories that allow wormholes (although they may not be invented yet) so one cannot ever say that general relativity is absolutely true, just that is one theory that is consistent with observations so far.

Answer 3

here is the thing, when you get to that level of math and physics, it no longer becomes numbers, it becomes something you can manipulate, and generalize or specify to allow what you want or need. All the principles for wormholes to exist are present in Einstein's theroies.

Answer 4

Wormholes are possible but not with current technology!

Answer 5

Einstein's theories of relativity provide for extreme distortions of space and time (not allowed by conventional Newtonian descriptions of space and time).  Likely the mathematics do not preclude the plausibility that wormholes may exist.

Answer 6

It means that a worm-hole is possible without contradicting the Theory.

Unlike, say, traveling faster-than-light ... (which would involve taking the square root of a negative number)

On the other hand, it's a bit like saying Newtons Theory of Gravity 'allows for' anti-gravity (look at the equation in link 1 .. if one body (eg. m1), has negative mass, then resultant gravitational force will be negative (repulsive)).

Answer 7

Why allow wormholes? Perhaps some people like or don’t like robins landing on their lawns? Just joking.

Well, science does have its language and some of it is very mathematical. What is a wormhole?

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A theoretical structure in spacetime that forms a tube-like connection between two separate regions of the universe.

Lorentzian wormholes known as Schwarzschild wormholes or Einstein-Rosen bridges are bridges between areas of space that can be modeled as vacuum solutions to the Einstein field equations by combining models of a black hole and a white hole

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I think we have to remember that most of these subjects are theoretical. No one singular person has ever traveled far into space, so it has to be modeled. To do something on paper or with a computer the model will be only be a representation of something that may or may not happen elsewhere.

Therefore I believe that ‘allow’ means to actually work the way it is being presented. If the formula or model is wrong the experiment will have calamitous results. In some case lab models just do not work the way scientists think they will or in some cases like with the nutty professor, the lab experiment blows up.

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example #101

3= 1+(1+x)

if x =1 the ‘machine’ above will work therefore x will *allow* 3 to exist.

else

x is not equal to 1 and therefore math is unstable and will be told to leave the class

Blue  doll :-)