Dave Goldberg points out that today, May 7, is the anniversary of an idea that’s become indispensible to writers of Space Opera and other fantasists:

Seventy-five years ago today, Albert Einstein and his collaborator, Nathan Rosen, submitted a paper to the Physical Review with the goal of unifying gravity and electromagnetism. Although they failed to discover a theory of everything, they did something arguably more much important: By creating the first theoretical model of a wormhole, Einstein and Rosen allowed science-fiction writers — including Arthur C. Clarke, Madeleine L’Engle and the writers of “Babylon 5” and “Doctor Who” — to explore vast stretches of space and time in the blink of an eye.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for the link.]