Scientists have simulated a ‘baby’ wormhole without disrupting space and time

Scientists Simulate a Wormhole with Quantum Computer, Creating a Virtual Space-Time Tunnel

TL;DR

Researchers have simulated a wormhole using a quantum computer, sending information between two tiny black holes through a virtual space-time tunnel. This simulation, conducted on Google’s Sycamore quantum processor, mimics the characteristics of a wormhole but doesn’t involve a physical rupture of space-time. Although this achievement highlights the potential of exploring quantum gravity, actual wormholes remain theoretical and not yet applicable for practical use. This marks a notable technical milestone in simulating complex quantum phenomena.

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It’s a staple of science fiction, it’s minuscule, and it doesn’t exist in the physical world, but researchers claim they’ve theoretically created a wormhole.

Researchers have announced that they simulated two tiny black holes in a quantum computer and sent a message between them through what was essentially a tunnel in space-time.

They reported that based on the quantum information teleported, a traversable wormhole seemed to have formed, although no physical rupture of space and time occurred during the experiment, according to the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

A wormhole—a rupture in space and time—is thought to be a bridge between two distant regions in the universe. Scientists call them Einstein-Rosen bridges after the two physicists who described them: Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen.

“It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. So that’s what we can say at this point – that we have something that in terms of the properties we look at, it looks like a wormhole,” said physicist and study co-author Joseph Lykken of Fermilab, America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory.

Caltech physicist Maria Spiropulu, another co-author of the study, described it as having the traits of a “baby wormhole” and now aims to develop “adult wormholes and toddler wormholes step-by-step.” The wormhole dynamics were observed on a quantum device at Google called the Sycamore quantum processor.

Experts who were not involved in the experiment stressed that it’s important to recognize that a physical wormhole wasn’t actually created but acknowledged the potential future implications.

Daniel Harlow, a physicist at MIT, told the New York Times that the experiment was based on a model that was so simple it could have been studied using pencil and paper.

“I’d say that this doesn’t teach us anything about quantum gravity that we didn’t already know,” Harlow wrote. “On the other hand, I think it is exciting as a technical achievement, because if we can’t even do this (and until now we couldn’t), then simulating more interesting quantum gravity theories would certainly be off the table.”

The study authors themselves emphasized that scientists are still far from being able to send people or other living beings through such a portal.

“Experimentally, for me, I will tell you that it’s very, very far away. People come to me and they ask me, ‘Can you put your dog in the wormhole?’ So, no,” Spiropulu told reporters during a video briefing. “… That’s a huge leap.”

Lykken added: “There’s a difference between something being possible in principle and possible in reality.

“So don’t hold your breath about sending your dog through the wormhole. But you have to start somewhere. And I think to me it’s just exciting that we’re able to get our hands on this at all.”

Such wormholes are compatible with Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which deals with gravity, one of the fundamental forces in the universe. The term “wormhole” was coined by physicist John Wheeler in the 1950s.

“These ideas have been around for a long time and they’re very powerful ideas,” Lykken said. “But in the end, we’re in experimental science, and we’ve been struggling now for a very long time to find a way to explore these ideas in the laboratory. And that’s what’s really exciting about this. It’s not just, ‘Well, wormholes are cool.’ This is a way to actually look at these very fundamental problems of our universe in a laboratory setting.”