Can Light Travel Through a Hole in Spacetime?

Can light travel through a tear or hole in the fabric of spacetime? Does light require the existence of the spacetime fabric for that light itself to exist?
- Mark (age 50)
Kilauea, HI. USA

Hi Mark,

Thanks for your question!

I honestly have no idea whether light could travel through a hole in spacetime. I have no idea what a hole in spacetime would be like, or how to describe it, and you won't find anyone who does. Spacetime is the entirety of what people are able to observe, and so anything that may or may not exist beyond the observable universe is necessarily undescribable. It's an unanswerable question. That is my favorite thing about science - we can use it to make incredibly accurate predictions about things that we do see, and as for the rest we admit we haven't the faintest clue!

- Courtney K

(published on 08/07/2016)