Imagine we stopped the Ethereum world computer right now. The
snapshot we would have at this particular slice in time is the world state.
The world state is a database that maps addresses to user accounts and
application accounts. More formally, Ethereum’s world
state is a database mapping Ethereum addresses to Externally-Owned
Accounts (user accounts) and contract accounts (application accounts).1
Whenever anything new happens the world state needs to be updated.
If an Externally-Owned Account sends another Externally-Owned
Account ETH then this changes the world state of Ethereum. If an
EOA interacts with a contract account then this causes a change in the
world state as well. The world state changes every 12 seconds based
on all the transactions users initiate.
