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Wormholes Untangle a Black Hole Paradox

An anonymous reader writes: Like initials carved in a tree, ER = EPR, as the new idea is known, is a shorthand that joins two ideas proposed by Einstein in 1935. One involved the paradox implied by what he called "spooky action at a distance" between quantum particles (the EPR paradox, named for its authors, Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen). The other showed how two black holes could be connected through far reaches of space through "wormholes" (ER, for Einstein-Rosen bridges). At the time that Einstein put forth these ideas — and for most of the eight decades since — they were thought to be entirely unrelated.

But if ER = EPR is correct, the ideas aren't disconnected — they're two manifestations of the same thing. And this underlying connectedness would form the foundation of all space-time. Quantum entanglement — the action at a distance that so troubled Einstein — could be creating the "spatial connectivity" that "sews space together," according to Leonard Susskind, a physicist at Stanford University and one of the idea's main architects. Without these connections, all of space would "atomize," according to Juan Maldacena, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., who developed the idea together with Susskind. "In other words, the solid and reliable structure of space-time is due to the ghostly features of entanglement," he said. What's more, ER = EPR has the potential to address how gravity fits together with quantum mechanics.

14 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Re:me dumb by I4ko · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The exhaust pile runs along the entire car, from the engine to the tail, and all other parts of the car stay together because they hold on to it.

  2. Re:me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Funny

    Really big things nobody really understands are surprisingly similar to really little things nobody understand -- with both groups exhibiting some really confusing long-distance connections we don't really understand.

    Beyond that .. I confess I don't have a clue, and you're on your own for a car analogy.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Re:me dumb by PPH · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Best analogy is Einstein's explaination of how radio works:

    "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  4. Re:me dumb by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Funny
    There are two strange issues in car-physics.

    1) The ER effect, is when you go with your dad to buy a cool convertible, but somehow comeback from the dealership with an beat up AMC Gremlin

    2) The EPR effect is when two cars that were once touching, continue to effect each other at a distance, the primary example of which is how when you are behind a slow car, when you move over to the fast lane, suddenly the slow car speeds up, leaving you in the distance.

    They have discovered that both of these effects are actually the same thing - it is fact the Gremlin that causes the previous fast lane to slow down.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  5. I have a depressing feeling about this... by rbrander · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...in fiction, basic discoveries of this magnitude promptly lead to anti-gravity, flying cars, space travel, and replicators.

    In real life, some PhDs are pleased with themselves and now understand why we exist and aren't a cloud of random particles - but I *still* don't get a damn jet pack.

    Oh, well: the announced today that they have asthma figured out at last and can probably cure it soon. I don't have asthma, but I'm glad we also got a practical discovery.

  6. P=1 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    There, solved it for you. Where's my grant money?

  7. murder mystery analogy with chickens by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Imagine a chicken's butt. picture it. Okay hang onto that thought because we'll come back to that later.
    There's a house made of rubber with a lot of rooms. While all the guests including the butler are gathered in the living room, the guests hear the sound of the master of the house being murdered in his bedroom which is at the end of a distant series of hallways. They also notice that at that moment the butler is missing, but a moment later he's back. It's too far from the dining room to the bedroom for the Butler to have walked there and walks back, so he's not a suspect. But we have two mysteries
    1) how did the butler vanish and re-appear. Very suscipicious. could he teleport?
    2) how did they hear the scream of the master in his distant bedroom.

    The second fact seems to clear the butler since no one wants to believe in teleportation.

    Then they discover the house is U-shaped and there's a secret passage directly connecting the bedroom to the living room. The spooky actions and effects at a distance are explained by a wormhole. Also it's the secret passage way that holds the rubber house in a U-shape.

    Now remember that chicken butt? I thought so. See if you can get it out of your mind.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  8. Re:me dumb by lgw · · Score: 5, Informative

    I can't explain the mathematics Leonardo is using (best nickname ever), but I can explain the basic idea.

    Wormholes can connect two arbitrary points in spacetime - this allows FTL travel, but that means time travel, with raises all sorts of paradoxes. The current understanding of this style (ER bridge) of wormhole is that they're inherently unstable - the math allows them to form, but they'd collapse as soon as anything interacted with them.

    Quantum entanglement says that two entangled particles have this oddball relationship that one somehow knows that the other has bean "measured" (any real interaction between two particles is a "measurement" in QM, it's not some special thing), in a way that's seemingly faster than light, but can't be used to send information.

    These two ideas dovetail nicely - if quantum entanglement means the two particles are connected by a wormhole, which collapses the moment either is "measured" (i.e., any time they interact with anything new), then you have a way for that communication to happen FTL, an then the two particles are disconnected and no longer have any special relationship. You don't get time travel paradoxes, because it's the nature of entanglement that you can't use it to send data FTL even though the effect is FTL.

    It sounds neat, but that almost counts against you in QM. The key is whether the math works. Exciting if true, however.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  9. Is there any news here? by jfengel · · Score: 4, Informative

    All I'm seeing is "some guy posted a blog entry about a three-year-old paper". Surely it must have been on Slashdot before, though I can't actually find it with Google.

    1. Re:Is there any news here? by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Surely it must have been on Slashdot before, though I can't actually find it with Google.

      It's entangled with its dupe. Finish observing this one and the other should show up via Google.

  10. Re:me dumb by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Funny

    The pudding is a metaphor, of man's eternal longing for an answer to the questions ... "what the fuck is that? You're not really going to eat it are you?"

    It just sits there, looking all gooey and non-Newtonian. It's just so wrong.

    *shudder*

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  11. The gist of the article and it's a streach by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here’s the heart of their argument: If a black hole’s event horizon is a smooth, seemingly ordinary place, as relativity predicts (the authors call this the “no drama” condition), the particles coming out of the black hole must be entangled with particles falling into the black hole. Yet for information not to be lost, the particles coming out of the black hole must also be entangled with particles that left long ago and are now scattered about in a fog of Hawking radiation. That’s one too many kinds of entanglements, the AMPS authors realized. One of them would have to go.

  12. Re:Quantum entanglement = wormholes by NotInHere · · Score: 4, Funny

    Here it is, the FSM:

    https://www.quantamagazine.org...

  13. Re:me dumb by dunng808 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The quarterback and receiver are together when the play begins. As the play develops they remain entangled, even over an increasing distance, up until the moment the ball is caught. Some quarterbacks are better at entanglement than others. As for wormholes, fans manifest their existence every time they shout their disapproval at the officials -- as if they were standing next to them.

    --

    Gary Dunn
    Open Slate Project