Netflix's Stranger Things wrapped its fifth and final season this week with a plot device that's as old as Einstein himself: the wormhole. The show, set in 1980s Indiana, has always borrowed from real science to anchor its paranormal storytelling. This time, it's using one of physics' most mind-bending concepts to do something unexpectedly useful.
In the finale, a science teacher tries to engage his class with the idea of wormholes — shortcuts through space that could theoretically connect distant galaxies without crossing the space between them. One student actually raises her hand. It's a small moment, but it reflects something physicists have noticed: science fiction can be the gateway drug to actual science.
Where the Idea Came From
Wormholes aren't new. Einstein and Nathan Rosen discovered a mathematical solution in 1935 suggesting that spacetime — the fabric woven from space and time together — could theoretically form a tunnel connecting two distant points. Decades later, physicists realized such a tunnel could act like a cosmic shortcut, letting matter travel between galaxies or even dimensions without crossing the conventional distance between them. The concept has appeared in Carl Sagan's writing, Star Trek, and the 2014 film Interstellar.
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Start Your News Detox"It's a hugely interesting and helpful toy model for physicists to play with," says Sean Carroll, a professor of theoretical physics at Johns Hopkins University. The reason physicists keep playing with wormholes, even though we've never observed one, is that they're useful for testing ideas about how the universe works.
Why This Matters for Teaching
Carsten Welsch, a physics professor at the University of Liverpool, sees the real value in Stranger Things weaving wormholes into its narrative. "The moment you mention physics or engineering to teenagers, they run away," he says. "But science fiction opens a dialogue. It makes them ask: are there forces we don't understand? Are there things beyond what we know?"
That's the quiet power here. Wormholes probably aren't real shortcuts through space — there are serious practical problems physicists have identified that make them implausible as actual travel routes. But as a teaching tool, they're almost perfect. They're strange enough to capture attention, grounded enough in real mathematics to be intellectually honest, and open-ended enough to spark genuine curiosity.
Welsch is hopeful that shows like Stranger Things can help deliver something physics classrooms desperately need: a new generation willing to ask hard questions about how reality works. Sometimes the path to understanding the universe runs through fiction first.
