In this film, a female scientist named Ellie is described. She received a series of mysterious electrical signals and made a machine based on them. Through this machine, she crossed the distant interstellar space and achieved her first contact with aliens.
However, how did Ellie make this machine jump in space? This is where carl sagan boldly imagined. His initial idea was to use black holes, but after all, he is not an ordinary science fiction writer, and his knowledge makes him hope that his novels will not contradict the known scientific knowledge as much as possible. So he consulted with his old friend Thorne, a professor at California Institute of Technology. After calculation, Thorne told him that it was impossible to use black holes for interstellar travel and suggested using the concept of "wormhole". This is the first time wormhole has entered science fiction. In physics, it was first put forward by Miesner and Wheeler in 1957, the same year that the first spacecraft was launched.