Wormhole devices in movies keep puzzling me for quite some time - why does a significant number of them look like rings rotating around each other?
Contact is one example, another is Event Horizon. The Terminator also had a similar looking time machine.
Currently, our sole way of manipulating spacetime is by cramming a heck of a lot of matter in one spot, which is to say that we don't really do much of it. Any way short of crushing down mountainsful of matter into a thimble would necessarily be more complex, with more moving parts. I can only think that rotation would come into play, and if one dimension is good, three would have to be better if you want to shred spacetime.
I don't think it's doable but in the sense that you want something to visually convey it, it may as well be the equivalent of lightning to stand in for electricity.
Not sure if there's some pseudo-physical explanation, but I've imagined it has something to do with visualizing the three dimensions that are manipulated.
Interestingly both Event Horizon and Contact (movie) are from 1997...
