Physicists didn’t make sure if these strange things existed in the actual world in the early days of black hole study before they even had that name. They might have resulted from the complicated arithmetic utilized in the general theory of relativity, which describes gravity at the time, still in its infancy. However, evidence has been collected that black holes are extremely real and can be found right here in our galaxy.
Another bizarre prediction of general relativity, wormholes, those fantasy-sounding tubes to the other side of the cosmos, is now in limbo. Are they genuine? Is it possible that if they exist in our universe, humanity will use them to go around? Following their prediction in 1935, studies seemed to indicate that wormholes were unlikely to exist in reality. However, recent research suggests that they might occur, and the mechanism may be simpler than physicists previously assumed.
Physicists Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen came up with the concept of a wormhole first. They looked at the weird equations that today explain the unfathomable region of space known as a black hole and wondered what they truly meant. Einstein and Rosen realized that, at least in theory, a black hole’s surface might serve as a bridge connecting two patches of space. It’s like if you fell down the drain of your bathtub, and instead of being caught in the pipes, you emerged into a second tub that looked just like the original.
Following this effort, two recurrent difficulties limiting the production of easily noticed, humanly useable wormholes were discovered: fragility and tininess. According to general relativity, the gravitational attraction of any standard stuff flowing through a wormhole acts to close the tunnel. Making a stable wormhole necessitates the addition of an unusual material that keeps the hole open, which researchers refer to as “exotic” matter.
Second, the kind of wormhole-creating processes investigated by scientists relies on phenomena that may prohibit a macroscopic passenger from entering. The problem is that the wormhole-creation process and the exotic stuff that stabilizes it can’t deviate too far from known physics. Strange does not imply that physicists can come up with anything that works on paper. However, conventional physics has only produced tiny wormholes thus far. A giant wormhole appears to need a novel and credible method or sort of substance. Brianna Grado-White, a physicist and wormhole researcher at Brandeis University, explains, “That’s the delicacy.”
Ping Gao and Daniel Jafferis, both of Harvard University and Aron Wall, of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., made a breakthrough in late 2017 when they identified a mechanism to prop open wormholes with quantum entanglement—a type of long-distance communication between quantum entities. Entanglement’s unusual nature allows it to give the exotic element required for wormhole stability. Entanglement is quite simple to manufacture since it is a specific property of quantum physics. Nabil Iqbal, a physicist at Durham University in England who was not involved in the study, adds, “It’s a very wonderful theoretical notion.” Even though the approach aids in the stabilization of wormholes, it can only supply small ones. However, this new strategy has sparked a flurry of research employing the entanglement trick with various types of materials intending to create larger, longer-lasting holes.
Preliminary research by Iqbal and his Durham University colleague Simon Ross offers a straightforward solution. The two attempted to use the Gao-Jafferis-Wall technique to create a giant wormhole. “From a sci-fi standpoint, we felt it would be intriguing to test the boundaries and see whether this creature could exist,” Iqbal adds. In principle, specific disruptions in the magnetic fields around a black hole might form stable wormholes, according to their research. Unfortunately, the impact only creates tiny wormholes, and Iqbal believes the circumstance would be highly improbable to occur in reality.
Iqbal and Ross’ work exemplifies the delicate nature of wormhole construction: devising a realistic technique that does not necessitate the addition of anything well outside the realm of known physics. Physicist Juan Maldacena of the Institute for Advanced Study, who first proposed a link between wormholes and entanglement in 2013, and his Princeton University associate Alexey Milekhin have developed a mechanism for producing enormous holes. The catch is that the enigmatic dark matter that fills our universe has to act in a specific manner, and we may not live in a world that looks like this. Grado-White explains, “We have a restricted toolkit.” “With that toolkit, there are only so many things we can do to get anything to look the way we need it.”
The wormhole research boom is still going strong. So yet, nothing resembling a made-to-order human-sized wormhole machine appears to be in the cards, but the findings indicate progress. Grado-White adds, “We’re learning that we can create wormholes that stay open using simple quantum processes.” “We didn’t think these things were conceivable to make for a long time, but it turns out they are.”
