in thi article we will know, What are Wormholes? Are they real? Are Wormholes Real? What Is Wormhole Theory?
why time travel is impossible, why time travel is not possible, how time travel works, will time travel ever be possible,
Hello, friends! The most amazing thing about our universe is its size. How unimaginably big this universe is. But this is perhaps the most disappointing thing. Think for yourself, if we use our powerful telescopes to find another planet like the Earth in a galaxy, that is capable of living for humans, it will take centuries to reach there. In fact, it is impossible for an individual to leave this galaxy. Now, everyone knows that the Earth is in the Milky Way Galaxy. And the closest galaxy to the Milky Way is the Andromeda Galaxy. Approximately 2.5 million light years away from the Earth. So if we use a spacecraft to reach there, the usual speed of a spacecraft is 28,000 km per hour. This speed will take 94.5 billion years to reach there.
Not only that, if we somehow make technology to travel at the speed of light, even then, to reach there, it would take 2.5 million years. This is going to disappoint us for months. After all, what's the point of searching for these planets when we'll never be able to travel there? But if there's a shortcut to travel beyond the galaxy, a shortcut through which we can determine the journey of a million light-years in a few months, then these things become interesting. These are shortcuts, friends. Wormholes. The 2014 film Interstellar, my favourite space film, I'd like to mention it again. In this film, it's shown that when Cooper and his team leave the Earth in search of more habitable planets, in search of more planets like the Earth, they travel to another galaxy.
From their galaxy to another galaxy, they reach a wormhole. Within a few minutes. This is the scene of the film when Cooper's team passes through the wormhole. According to the film, this wormhole was discovered near Saturn's orbit by NASA. It is often mentioned in the film because it plays an important role in the plot. But the most interesting thing is that the concept of wormholes is not science fiction. Rather, it is based on real science. What exactly are wormholes and how can we use them? Before we understand all this, we need to come back to Einstein's theory of relativity. Now, let's go deeper into it. When Albert Einstein wrote his theory of relativity, it was written in a set of equations.
The set of equations is known as Einstein's Field Equations. It was first publicly revealed on 25th November 1915, when Einstein submitted his paper to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Germany. In total, these field equations are made up of 10 different equations. 10 non-linear partial differential equations. But in short, they can also be represented by one equation. And one equation looks something like this. Don't worry, we won't go into mathematical details in this article. Because there is a lot of complexity in this one equation. If you expand this equation, you can see the steps. Even if you love Maths, you will still get confused. These equations tell us how matter and energy influence the curvature of space-time. Albert Einstein said that to visualize this, imagine a big mesh.
When you place objects on this mesh, it bends down due to weight. The space-time mesh bends and curves in the same way, due to the weight of big planets and stars. The more gravitational force of a planetary object, the more the space-time mesh will curve around it. Interestingly, Albert Einstein himself couldn't solve his field equations properly. He came up with an approximate solution for his equation in a specific case. The first person to solve these field equations was Karl Schwarzschild in the year 1916. He calculated exactly how much the space-time curve bends in the case of a single ball of mass. This was the solution of Karl Schwarzschild, with the help of which scientists understood the concept of singularity. What would happen if this mass becomes infinitely dense?
The curvature of space-time would wrap around it so tightly that this region would be completely pinched off from the rest of the Universe. Because of this, scientists were able to theoretically prove the concept of a black hole. And this happened 100 years ago. Actually, after many decades, it was the first time in the year 2019 that a scientist took a photo of a black hole. So I'd like to say that black holes were the solution to these field equations. Theoretically, we already knew about the existence of black holes about 100 years before they were discovered. Friends, another solution to these field equations is wormholes. You might be wondering how these two solutions are coming out after solving one equation. I'd say, remember the quadratic equations in school?
There are two solutions to this simple equation as well. x equals to 2 and x equals to 3. Both fit together. If you look at Einstein's field equations, they are much more complicated. There can be many solutions to them. A wormhole is a solution, and its scientific name is the wormhole solution. Einstein-Rosen bridge. This name comes from Albert Einstein and his assistant Nathan Rosen, who together came up with this solution in 1935. It's easy to understand wormholes, it's basically a shortcut that connects the two points of spacetime. First, I'll explain things to you in two dimensions, so that it's easy for you to understand. Look at this paper. There are two points on it, A and B. If you want to go from point A to point B, using the smallest path,
Which path can it be? The straight line that connects A and B. Right? There can be no other path smaller than this in two dimensions, except the straight line connecting the two points. But if we bend this two-dimensional mesh into three dimensions, you'll see that new paths emerge. I have bent A and B in such a way that if you want to choose the shortest path to go from A to B, you can use the distance of a few millimetres between A and B. And if I make a path here, between these two, literally, with a pen, a shortcut path has been made to go from A to B, which is very, very small as compared to this path. The wormholes are also doing the same thing.
In our three-dimensional world, we think that the shortest way to go from the Milky Way Galaxy to the Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years away. But if our three-dimensional space is curved in the fourth dimension, if it is bent, then it is possible to find a shorter way than this. It is very difficult for us to imagine the fourth dimension because we all live in three dimensions. But to some extent, you can understand it better if you compare two dimensions and three dimensions. Let me give you another example of this. This is the map of the world. Suppose you have to take a flight from Delhi to New York. What would be the shortest route of the flight? You'd say that the flight from Delhi to New York, directly connecting to the straight line, would take place over Africa.
But in reality, this won't be the shortest route. Because you're thinking in two dimensions. The smallest way would be to cross Finland and Sweden, and go to New York from Iceland and Greenland. Looking at it in two dimensions, you'd wonder why it took such a long journey. But if you look at it in three dimensions, it would seem quite obvious. This is the smallest way. In 1957, scientist John Wheeler published a paper on the Einstein-Rosen bridges. And he compared it with a similar analogy. He said that there's an apple, and a worm is eating that apple. It reaches from one side to the other side of the apple, while travelling from the beach to eat it. Instead of travelling on the surface of the apple, like how our aeroplanes travel around the Earth's surface and circumference.
By doing this, the worm will travel a short distance. In a way, it has taken a shortcut in space-time. Wheeler named this term, wormhole. And from here, the word wormhole originated. When you search the word wormhole on the internet, you get to see many diagrams like this. The same thing that I did with the paper, I connected two points through a hole. Here, it is being imagined that our space-time mesh has an object on it, which has a very high gravitational force. So high that the curvature of the space-time has been bent so much that it has come out from the other side. The space-time mesh has folded on top of itself. Just like the paper that I folded. And this wormhole has become a shortcut to travel from one galaxy to another.
But all these visualizations have the same problem of dimensions. A wormhole has been tried to represent in two dimensions. But as I said, a wormhole works in 3D to 4D. So if a wormhole ever exists in reality, it will look like a spherical ball. There's an interesting website where you can visualize how wormholes actually look like, if their existence is proven. A ball-shaped figure, As you keep going in and out, things around you look curved. And if you turn around, the Earth is moving away from you. And everything will look in a circular shape. That's why the wormhole shown in the Interstellar film, has been depicted in a very realistic way. It's important to note that the concept of wormholes, as of 2023, is only a theoretical concept.
It has been theoretically found to be the solution to Einstein's field equations. In the movies, scientists have tried to visualise it. Many theories have been made on it. But practically, no one has ever seen a wormhole. Scientists don't know if wormholes do exist or not. But if wormholes do exist, they will work as a time machine. Because imagine, in a few minutes, you can reach millions of light years away. This means that you reached there before the light. Even if the light didn't reach there, you basically jumped from one place to another in time. Now that's a different matter, if wormholes exist, can humans travel through them or not? Practical problems arise when we consider wormholes to be true. The first question is, how will the opening of the wormhole be made?
We need a very heavy gravitational force here. Where will this gravitational force come from? A black hole. Einstein and his assistant Rosen theorised that only black holes can have such a gravitational force that they can open up the tunnels of wormholes. Everything is attracted towards black holes. Everything will be attracted towards it and flow through this wormhole. Through this tunnel. But the next question arises, what will happen to the other side of this tunnel? If there is a black hole on the other side, there will be no way out of this tunnel. You will be trapped inside it. Basically, this wormhole won't be a tunnel to go from one side to the other, it will be a place to trap.
Something like this should happen on the other side, that is opposite to the black hole in every sense. Something that is as powerful as the black hole, but works in the opposite way. Instead of attracting things towards itself, it should send things away from itself. So that an exit point can be created. And this is where our story begins, friends. of white holes. Once again, white holes are a concept that has been theoretically proved by Einstein's field equations. Apart from black holes and wormholes, white holes are another solution to these field equations. What are white holes? Just as white is the opposite of black, a white hole is the opposite of a black hole in every sense. For example, in a black hole, no light can escape once trapped inside it.
On the other hand, in a white hole, no light can enter. It can only come out. This means that the White Hole would be extremely bright in colour. Russian theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Igor Novikov, was the first person to use the term White Hole in 1964. According to scientists, the White Hole is basically the time reversal of the Black Hole. The event horizon of the Black Hole, is a point of no return. If you cross it, nothing can escape. Similarly, the event horizon of a white hole is a boundary of no admission. Nothing can go beyond that point. The objects inside the white hole can certainly go out, and interact with the outside world, but nothing can go back inside. Even though Einstein's Relativity Theory is a solution, no one knows how white holes will form in reality.
I explained about the formation of black holes in the article, when a star collapses on its own, But nothing can go wrong with it. Whether something like a white hole exists or not, is the topic of discussion among scientists today. Some scientists believe that when the Big Bang happened, and the beginning of the Universe, at that moment of creation, everything would have emerged from a huge white hole. Another theory is based on the idea given by Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking said that a black hole would eventually evaporate, Black holes are not eternal. They evaporate away at an increasing rate, until they vanish in a gigantic explosion. But when a black hole evaporates, what happens to the information in it? What happens to the matter in it?
Quantum theory has a fundamental law that says that no information can be lost. It is called the No-Hiding Theorem. According to the No-Hiding Theorem, if any information disappears from a system, then it must be existing somewhere else in the Universe. Theoretically, if all this information is sucking in in a black hole, then it must be spitting out somewhere after leaving the black hole. And this is likely to happen through a white hole. On the basis of this argument, many scientists say that a white hole forms when a black hole dies. But until now, we don't have any substantial information on how black holes die. On the other hand, some scientists argue that it is theoretically impossible for something like white holes to exist.
Because it violates the second law of thermodynamics. As you must have read in school, the second law of thermodynamics says that entropy cannot be reduced in any system. Take the example of this paper. If I tear this paper apart, after the paper is torn apart, the entropy is increasing. It is not possible to join it back in exactly the same way. The way a paper shredding machine shreds papers, to increase the entropy of the paper, the black holes in the universe somehow shred everything. The black holes of all the planets and stars are swallowed up, and only the radiation is left. This increases the entropy of the entire universe. But if you try to imagine that this is happening in reverse, that the entropy is decreasing, it's not possible.
And if white holes exist, then they will essentially do the same thing. That's why they can't exist with this logic. Despite this, some scientists believe that not only white holes exist, but in 2006, scientists saw a scene of white holes. June 14th, 2006. A space satellite named Neil Gaiman, Gehrel's Swift Observatory. It captured an astronomical event. Scientists saw an explosion of a white light. And it suddenly disappeared. This event was named GRB 060614. It was a gamma-ray burst. Gamma-ray bursts are very energetic explosions that are observed in distant galaxies. Usually, these events occur when a black hole swallows a large star. we get to see very bright explosions of light. But in this case, no evidence of a star was found. So it was hypothesised that it was an observation of a white hole.
Since then, we haven't seen any such events again. And that's why white holes are still a theoretical thing. But it's worth noting that black holes were also a theoretical thing at one point. But then, one day, they were practically proved. it is possible that in the future, the same will happen with white holes. The same thing can be said about wormholes, friends. It is possible that they can be proved in the future. But even if their existence is proved, scientists still doubt whether humans will actually be able to travel through them or not. The most interesting latest news about the existence of wormholes is from 2015, when scientists created a magnetic wormhole in a laboratory. So the wormholes we were talking about so far were in the sense of gravitational force.
But if we talk about magnetic force, then scientists have already been successful in creating wormholes. What does this mean? There are two ends of a magnet. A North Pole and a South Pole. We all know that two ends are always together. If you break a magnet into two pieces, then the two poles of both pieces will remain the same. What did the scientists achieve by using some special materials? They separated the two poles of the magnet, and placed an invisible gap in the middle. Basically, the magnetic field of one magnet went inside one end of the wormhole, and came out of the other end. You can see its visualisation here. The image on the left shows a device created by the scientists, which separated the two poles of the magnet.
So this device is basically working as a wormhole for the magnetic field. We can see this device with our eyes, but if you look at the magnetic fields in the right picture, you will see that on one side, there is a pole of a magnet, and on the other side, a separate pole. Like a wormhole in space, will bend the space-time curvature. Here, this wormhole bent the magnetic field. To make this magnetic wormhole, a high-temperature superconducting material was used. It is called Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide. And it was kept in a liquid nitrogen bath to do this experiment. Finally, friends, I'd like to say that even if the existence of wormholes is not proved in the future, it doesn't mean that we can't find other ways to travel faster than light.
Theoretically, many other solutions are proposed. For example, Alcubierre Drive. It was proposed in 1994 by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. The idea here is that a spacecraft that can travel at a faster speed than light. But how will it be able to do it? It will be able to do it by contracting the space-time curvature in front of it, and expanding the space-time curvature behind it. Theoretically, another solution of Einstein's field equation is presented here by the Alcubierre Drive. It would be interesting to see what other solutions are proposed in the future of these field equations, and what practical solutions they can come up with.
