Wormhole Bridges Space to Unravel Universe’s Deep Mysteries
This is fascinating. Now, a new approach sidesteps the long-standing problem of scaling up quantum prototypes. ‘Counterportation’ provides the first-ever practical blueprint for creating a wormhole in the lab that verifiably bridges space. A novel computing scheme, published in the journal Quantum Science and Technology, harnesses the basic laws of physics. Researchers can reconstitute a small object across space without any particles crossing.
Hatim Salih, Honorary Research Fellow at the university’s Quantum Engineering Technology (QET) Labs, and co-founder of the start-up DotQuantum, indicated that the approach provides a theoretical and practical framework for exploring afresh enduring puzzles about the universe, such as the true nature of spacetime.
Detectable information carriers traveling through when we communicate is a deeply ingrained assumption among scientists. This is true even for quantum teleportation, which, Star Trek aside, transfers complete information about a small object, allowing it to be reconstituted elsewhere, so it is indistinguishable in any meaningful way from the original, which disintegrates. The recent simulation of a wormhole on Google’s Sycamore processor is essentially a teleportation experiment.
According to Hatim, counterportation achieves the end goal of teleportation, namely disembodied transport, without any detectable information carriers traveling across.
Wormholes first came to light about a century ago as quirky solutions to Einstein’s gravity equation, virtual shortcuts in the fabric of spacetime. However, the task of a traversable wormhole makes space traversable in the absence of any journey across observable space outside the wormhole.
Counterportation will require an entirely new type of quantum computer be built–where communicating parties exchange no particles. In collaboration with leading UK quantum experts in Bristol, Oxford, and York, plans are now underway to physically build this otherworldly-sounding wormhole in the lab.
