Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: cosmology – Page 201

Physicists have purportedly created the first-ever wormhole, a kind of tunnel theorized in 1935 by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen that leads from one place to another by passing into an extra dimension of space.

The wormhole emerged like a hologram out of quantum bits of information, or “qubits,” stored in tiny superconducting circuits. By manipulating the qubits, the physicists then sent information through the wormhole, they reported today in the journal Nature.

The team, led by Maria Spiropulu of the California Institute of Technology, implemented the novel “wormhole teleportation protocol” using Google’s quantum computer, a device called Sycamore housed at Google Quantum AI in Santa Barbara, California. With this first-of-its-kind “quantum gravity experiment on a chip,” as Spiropulu described it, she and her team beat a competing group of physicists who aim to do wormhole teleportation with IBM and Quantinuum’s quantum computers.”

The unprecedented experiment explores the possibility that space-time somehow emerges from quantum information, even as the work’s interpretation remains disputed.

Read more | >

This would be great for teleporting objects for shipping across the planet or cosmos eventually. 😀

Scientists have created a “holographic wormhole” inside a quantum computer for the first time.

The pioneering experiment allows researchers to study the ways that theoretical wormholes and quantum physics interact, and could help solve some of the most difficult and perplexing parts of science.

The wormhole is theoretical: researchers did not produce an actual rupture in space and time. But the experimental creation of one inside the quantum computer – which saw a message sent between two simulated blackholes – nonetheless allows scientists to examine how they might work, after almost 100 years of theory.

Read more | >

Axions that decay into photons could account for visible light that exceeds what’s expected to come from all known galaxies.

If you could switch off the Milky Way’s stars and gaze at the sky with a powerful telescope, you’d see the cosmic optical background (COB)—visible-wavelength light emitted by everything outside our Galaxy. Recent studies by the New Horizons spacecraft—which, after its Pluto flyby, has been looking further afield—have returned the most precise measurements of the COB yet, showing it to be brighter than expected by a factor of 2. José Bernal and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland propose that this excess could be caused by decaying dark matter particles called axions [1]. They say that their model could be falsified or supported by future observations.

Comparing COB measurements to predictions provides a tool for testing hypotheses about the structure of the Universe. But measuring the COB is very difficult due to contamination by diffuse light from much nearer sources, especially sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Observing from the edge of our Solar System, New Horizons should be unaffected by most of this contamination, making the measured excess brightness a tool for improving our understanding of galaxy evolution.

Read more | >

Time travel makes great science fiction, but can it really be done? Travel into the future is already a reality, but visiting the past is a much tougher proposition, and may require fantastic resources such as a wormhole in space. Nevertheless, if going back in time is allowed, even in principle, then what about all those paradoxes that make time travel stories so intriguing?

Paul Davies is a physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, where he is Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He is the author of many books, including “How to Build a Time Machine” and, most recently, “The Eerie Silence: are we alone in the universe?”

Read more | >

Swipe right to uncover the mysteries of dark energy.

A group of more than 10,000 amateur astronomers spread out over 85 countries has identified roughly 240,000 galaxies over the last two years. Now, the Dark Energy Explorers group aims to recruit even more volunteers and take its work to the next level with a project that could shed new light on the mysterious nature of dark energy, a press statement reveals.

To do so, they must help build the most extensive 3D map of the cosmos by using an app that functions surprisingly like the popular dating app Tinder.

Uladzimir Zuyeu/iStock.

Now, the Dark Energy Explorers group aims to recruit even more volunteers and take its work to the next level with a project that could shed new light on the mysterious nature of dark energy, a press statement reveals.

Read more | >

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.

In science fiction – think films and TV like “Interstellar” and “Star Trek” – wormholes in the cosmos serve as portals through space and time for spacecraft to traverse unimaginable distances with ease. If only it were that simple.

Scientists have long pursued a deeper understanding of wormholes and now appear to be making progress. Researchers announced on Wednesday that they forged two minuscule simulated black holes – those extraordinarily dense celestial objects with gravity so powerful that not even light can escape – in a quantum computer and transmitted a message between them through what amounted to a tunnel in space-time.

Read more | >