A new Physical Review Letters study places constraints on the ER = EPR conjecture, showing that under the authors’ assumptions, the conjecture would imply possible alterations to the hyperfine structure and effective charge of the hydrogen atom—effects that have never been observed.

In 1935, Einstein co-authored two distinct papers. The first proposes the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox describing the quantum entanglement of particles. The second one introduces Einstein-Rosen (ER) bridges connecting distant regions of spacetime, which we today call wormholes.

Nearly a century later, in 2013, physicists Juan Maldacena and Leonard Susskind proposed the ER = EPR conjecture, proposing a link between quantum entanglement and wormholes. This links entanglement, a cornerstone of quantum mechanics, with spacetime connectivity, general relativity. This remains one of the major open questions in modern physics.