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Scientists create a 'baby wormhole', in a step that brings science fiction closer to reality

2022-12-02T01:37:28.581Z


A group of scientists brought science fiction closer to reality: they managed to forge two minuscule black holes simulated in a quantum computer and transmitted a message between them through what amounted to a tunnel in space-time.


Artist's impression of a quantum experiment simulating the behavior of a wormhole.

Credit: Caltech/Reuters

(Reuters) --

In science fiction, think of movies and TV shows like "Interstellar" and "Star Trek," wormholes in the cosmos serve as portals through space and time for spacecraft to pass through unimaginable distances with ease.

If only it were that simple.

Scientists have long sought a deeper understanding of wormholes, and now it appears they have made progress.

Researchers announced Wednesday that they were able to forge two minuscule simulated black holes—those extraordinarily dense celestial objects with gravity so powerful not even light can escape—into a quantum computer and relayed a message between them via what amounted to a tunnel in space-time.

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It was a "baby wormhole," according to Caltech physicist Maria Spiropulu, a co-author on the research that was published in the academic journal

Nature

.

But scientists are a long way from being able to send people or other living things through such a portal, she said.

Artist's impression of a quantum experiment simulating the behavior of a wormhole.

Credit: Caltech/Reuters

"Experimentally, for me, I'll tell you it's a long, long way away. People come to me and ask, 'Can you send your dog down the wormhole? Nope,' Spiropulu told reporters during a briefing. by video.

"That's a huge leap."

"There is a difference between something being possible in principle and actually being so," added physicist and study co-author Joseph Lykken of Fermilab, a US laboratory for particle physics and accelerators.

"So don't get your hopes up that you're sending your dog through the wormhole. But you have to start somewhere. And I think it's exciting to me that we're able to do that."

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The researchers looked at wormhole dynamics in a Google Alphabet quantum device called the Sycamore quantum processor.

A wormhole, a rupture in space and time, is considered a bridge between two remote regions of the universe.

Scientists refer to them as Einstein-Rosen bridges after the two physicists who described them: Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen.

These wormholes are consistent with Einstein's theory of general relativity, which focuses on gravity, one of the fundamental forces of the universe.

The term "wormhole" was coined by physicist John Wheeler in the 1950s.

Spiropulu said the researchers found a quantum system that exhibits the key properties of a gravitational wormhole, but is small enough to be implemented on existing quantum hardware.

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"It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, and 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're looking at, looks like a wormhole," he said. Lykken.

The researchers claimed that no rupture of space and time in physical space was created in the experiment, although a traversable wormhole appears to have emerged based on the quantum information teleported via quantum codes in the quantum processor.

"These ideas have been around for a long time and are very powerful," Lykken said.

"But in the end, we're in the realm of experimental science and we've been struggling for a long time to find a way to explore these ideas in the lab. And that's what's really exciting about this. It's not just, 'Well, wormholes they're great.' It's a way to really examine these fundamental problems of our universe in a laboratory setting."

black hole

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2022-12-02

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