What Should We Send Through a Wormhole?
September 13, 2026
One of the easiest assumptions to make when thinking about communication is that the signal comes after the communication channel.
Build the channel first.
Then decide what to send through it.
That assumption may not work for wormhole communication.
In the previous stage of the Wormhole Communication project, we developed WC-MGT-1: a Minimum Geometry Throat model intended to ask how little spacetime geometry might theoretically be required to transmit useful information.
That work produced an important lesson.
Making the throat smaller does not automatically make the physics easier.
But it also raised another question:
What exactly are we trying to send through the throat?
A photon?
A different field excitation?
A particle carrying information?
And does that choice change the geometry required for reliable transmission?
That became the next stage of the investigation.
The Carrier and the Channel May Be One Problem
Ordinary communication engineering often allows us to separate the transmission medium from the information being transmitted.
Fiber exists, and we send light through it.
Radio propagation exists, and we modulate electromagnetic waves.
A cable exists, and electrical signals travel through it.
A theoretical wormhole may be different.
The geometry itself can affect how different fields propagate.
That means we cannot simply design a theoretical wormhole and assume that whatever information carrier we choose will pass through it equally well.
Instead, the problem becomes:
Which information carrier works best with the smallest physically meaningful geometry?
This led to the carrier-geometry matching stage of Project WC.
Start With Direct Communication
The project has considered the possibility that a tiny physical object could someday carry stored information through a traversable geometry.
That remains a fallback concept.
But it is not the preferred approach.
If a field excitation can carry information directly through the geometry, then transporting a physical message container adds unnecessary complexity.
So the first comparison focused on direct information carriers.
Among the initial candidates were:
- electromagnetic fields,
- fermionic excitations,
- and scalar-field modes.
These should not be interpreted as three technologies waiting to be built.
They are theoretical probes.
By asking how each behaves in the same test geometry, we can determine whether the choice of carrier significantly changes the transmission requirements.
A Transmission Threshold
For WC-MGT-1, the important quantity is not simply whether some portion of a signal can cross the theoretical geometry.
Communication requires reliable recovery of information.
So we introduced a stronger test.
Instead of asking:
Can anything get through?
we asked:
What conditions are required for approximately 99 percent transmission in the model?
A useful dimensionless quantity is
where:
- \(\omega\) is the angular frequency of the excitation,
- \(r_0\) is the throat radius,
- and \(c\) is the speed of light.
This allows different throat sizes and frequencies to be compared using the same scale.
For the electromagnetic case, our numerical analysis produced approximately
Equivalently, the approximate frequency required for 99 percent transmission scales as
That relationship immediately tells us something important.
As the throat becomes smaller, the frequency required for high transmission increases.
Once again, making the geometry microscopic does not simply make everything easier.
Does Another Carrier Do Better?
The next step was to perform comparable calculations for other field types while keeping the underlying test geometry fixed.
The results were interesting.
For the fermionic case, the corresponding threshold was approximately
The scalar comparison produced approximately
The electromagnetic value remained
So within this particular model, the fermionic and scalar cases reached the selected transmission threshold at a somewhat lower dimensionless frequency than the electromagnetic case.
That is a model result.
But it is not evidence that fermions or scalar fields provide a practical wormhole communication system.
And it does not mean that we have discovered the optimal information carrier.
Figure 8A. WC-MGT-1 carrier–geometry matching result. The figure compares modeled candidate information carriers within the selected WC-MGT-1 theoretical geometry. Numerical relationships shown are model results; the depicted wormhole geometry is a conceptual visualization, not a physical simulation or demonstrated wormhole.
Figure created for Beyond the Light Barrier with OpenAI ChatGPT from the WC-MGT-1 model analysis.
Figure 8B. WC-MGT-1 carrier transmission-threshold comparison. Within the selected WC-MGT-1 model and numerical treatment, the approximate dimensionless thresholds for 99-percent transmission are 1.734 for the fermionic case, 1.735 for the scalar case, and 2.028 for the electromagnetic case. These are Beyond the Light Barrier model results and have not been independently reproduced.
Figure created for Beyond the Light Barrier with OpenAI ChatGPT from the WC-MGT-1 numerical analysis.
Lowest Number Does Not Mean Best System
If we optimized only for the lowest calculated transmission threshold, the electromagnetic carrier would not win this particular comparison.
But communication systems have more requirements than transmission through an idealized geometry.
We also have to consider:
- generation,
- modulation,
- detection,
- information fidelity,
- synchronization,
- energy requirements,
- noise,
- and eventual experimental accessibility.
Electromagnetic communication has enormous practical advantages in those areas because we already know how to generate, modulate, transmit and detect electromagnetic signals with extraordinary precision.
That matters.
A modest theoretical advantage in one parameter does not automatically outweigh enormous practical disadvantages elsewhere.
For now, electromagnetic excitation therefore remains the project's primary practical carrier candidate, while the fermionic case remains an important alternative and the scalar case provides a useful theoretical diagnostic.
That conclusion can change if future analysis changes the evidence.
Another Negative Result Was Useful
The electromagnetic analysis also looked for something we would have been very happy to find:
a useful low-frequency resonance.
If the geometry naturally provided a transmission resonance at much lower frequencies, that could potentially reduce some of the carrier requirements.
We did not find one in the analyzed WC-MGT-1 electromagnetic potential.
That is a negative result.
And it belongs in the research record.
The purpose of the calculation was not to produce a favorable answer.
It was to determine what the model actually predicts.
What We Have Learned
The carrier-geometry work has now given us several conclusions within WC-MGT-1.
First, the information carrier cannot simply be chosen after the geometry is designed.
Carrier and geometry have to be evaluated together.
Second, different field types do produce different transmission characteristics in the same theoretical geometry.
Third, the carrier with the mathematically lowest transmission threshold is not necessarily the best engineering choice.
And fourth, microscopic geometry continues to create tradeoffs rather than providing an automatic path toward easier physics.
But there is a much larger problem still waiting for us.
The Geometry Still Has to Exist
Everything described here assumes that WC-MGT-1 exists as a spacetime geometry.
We have not shown that it can exist physically.
We have not shown that it can be manufactured.
We have not demonstrated the required stress-energy distribution.
And we have not demonstrated a wormhole of any size capable of transmitting information.
The carrier analysis therefore answers a deliberately narrow question:
If this theoretical geometry existed, how would different candidate information carriers behave within it?
That distinction is essential.
Where the Research Goes Next
The next stage needs to confront some of the physics that may prevent the geometry from existing in the first place.
In particular, we need to examine more carefully the constraints associated with extreme fields, negative-energy requirements, quantum-field theory, and the limits those constraints may impose on microscopic traversable geometries.
It is entirely possible that those constraints will overwhelm the differences we just found between carriers.
If they do, that is the result we need to document.
The Wormhole Communication project is therefore becoming progressively narrower.
We began with:
Can wormholes provide faster communication?
Then:
What is the smallest useful communication geometry?
Then:
What information carrier best matches that geometry?
And now:
Does known physics permit the required geometry to exist at all?
Each question removes another assumption.
And that is exactly what this research process is supposed to do.
Research Integrity Status
Established evidence: Electromagnetic, fermionic and other quantum fields exhibit physically measurable propagation behavior, and quantum-field effects place constraints on allowable stress-energy configurations.
Accepted theory: Field propagation can depend upon background spacetime geometry.
Published speculative theory: Traversable-wormhole geometries and field propagation through those theoretical geometries.
Beyond the Light Barrier model result: Within the selected WC-MGT-1 test geometry and numerical treatment, the approximate 99-percent transmission thresholds obtained were \(x_{99}^{EM}\approx2.028\), \(x_{99}^{F}\approx1.734\), and \(x_{99}^{S}\approx1.735\).
Beyond the Light Barrier engineering assessment: Electromagnetic excitation remains the current primary practical carrier candidate despite its somewhat higher modeled threshold because of its generation, modulation, detection, and measurement advantages.
Not demonstrated: A physical traversable wormhole, manufactured negative-energy configuration, wormhole communication channel, or faster-than-light information transfer.
Sources & Further Reading
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Michael S. Morris and Kip S. Thorne (1988), “Wormholes in Spacetime and Their Use for Interstellar Travel: A Tool for Teaching General Relativity.” American Journal of Physics, 56, 395–412. This foundational paper develops the static, spherically symmetric traversable-wormhole framework used as the theoretical starting point for WC-MGT-1. The existence of the mathematical solutions does not demonstrate that such wormholes can be physically constructed.
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Sayan Kar, Deshdeep Sahdev, and Biplab Bhawal (1994), “Scalar Waves in a Wormhole Geometry.” Published work on wave propagation in theoretical wormhole spacetimes provides background for the idea that a field’s transmission behavior depends on the geometry through which it propagates. Such studies motivate treating the information carrier and the spacetime geometry as a coupled problem rather than assuming every field propagates identically.
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P. Dutta Roy, S. Aneesh, and Sayan Kar (2020), “Revisiting a Family of Wormholes: Geometry, Matter, Scalar Quasinormal Modes and Echoes.” This work examines how scalar perturbations behave in a family of ultrastatic wormhole geometries and shows that changes in wormhole geometry alter the effective wave-propagation potential and observable mode structure. It provides further background for the carrier–geometry relationship explored in Project WC.
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L. H. Ford and Thomas A. Roman (1996), “Quantum Field Theory Constrains Traversable Wormhole Geometries.” Physical Review D, 53, 5496. Ford and Roman applied quantum-inequality bounds to the negative-energy distributions associated with traversable wormholes, finding severe restrictions on familiar semiclassical wormhole configurations. These constraints are directly relevant to the next stage of WC-MGT research.
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C. J. Fewster and S. P. Eveson (1998), “Bounds on Negative Energy Densities in Flat Spacetime.” Physical Review D, 58, 084010. This work develops more general quantum-inequality bounds on time-averaged negative energy densities in quantum field theory. Such results help define the limits that any proposed negative-energy-supported spacetime geometry must confront.
Note on the numerical results in this entry: The values \(x_{99}^{F}\approx1.734\), \(x_{99}^{S}\approx1.735\), and \(x_{99}^{EM}\approx2.028\) are results of the Beyond the Light Barrier WC-MGT-1 numerical analysis described in this research journal. They are not values quoted from the external sources above. Future technical publication will require the calculation method, assumptions, code, parameter choices, and reproducibility information to be provided in sufficient detail for independent verification.
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