Black holes are the single most interesting and puzzling objects in our Universe – that we know of. But as if they weren’t mysterious enough, researchers have found that if you apply a quantum theory of gravity to these bizarre objects, the all-crushing singularity at their core disappears, opening a whole new Universe of possibilities – literally.
What we know so far
At the center of every black hole, there lies what is called a singularity – a region where space and time becomes inifinite – this was described by Albert Einstein. If you get sucked into singularity, you will become inifitely dense, but what happens after that… nobody really knows. From a mathematically physical point of view, nothing happens from that point on.
“When you reach the singularity in general relativity, physics just stops, the equations break down,” says Abhay Ashtekar of Pennsylvania State University.
But this isn’t a problem limited strictly to black holes – the big bang, the one birth of our universe is thought to have also started out with a singularity – a singularity which again, breaks the limits of general relativity.
Adding a little quantum physics
As if things weren’t strange enough already, researchers started to add quantum physics in the mix: in 2006, Ashtekar and colleagues applied loop quantum gravity (LQG) to the birth of the universe.
LQG combines general relativity with quantum mechanics and defines space-time as a web of indivisible chunks of about 10-35 metres in size. What they found was absolutely stunning: as they went back in time in an LQG Universe, they reached the big bang, but no singularity – instead, something even more curious happened: they crossed a “quantum bridge” (politically correct term for a wormhole) into another older universe, basically confirming the Big Bounce Universe theory.
The Big Bounce is a hypothetical scientific model that claims all Universal start and end is cyclic – every Big Bang is the result of the collapse of a previous Universe.
Again, this happened in 2006, and now, Jorge Pullin at Louisiana State University and Rodolfo Gambini at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, have applied LQG on a much smaller scale: to an individual black hole – results were, again, stunning.
Wormholes and quantum physics
In this new model, gravitational field still increased, but it didn’t reached singularity, and after you’ve passed the black hole’s center, tha gravity starts dropping, and as you come out on the other side (assuming that could be possible), you would end up in another region of our universe, or another universe altogether. Despite only holding for a simple model of a black hole, the researchers – and Ashtekar – believe the theory may banish singularities from real black holes too.
So there is a mathematical theory which suggests that if you go on one end of a black hole, you will end up in another part of the Universe, or in another Universe alltogether. While other theories, not to mention some works of science fiction, have suggested this – now it’s real business. But here’s the kicker:
It is now believed that black holes are also supposed to evaporate over time. As they soak up matter and information over a long period of time, if the information ends up in another Universe, then from our point of view, the information would be gone forever – practically destroyed – and that defies quantum theory itself!
But researchers suggest that if the black hole has no singularity, then the information needn’t be lost – it may just tunnel its way through to another universe – and we have to take that into consideration as well.
“Information doesn’t disappear, it leaks out,” says Pullin.
Sometimes, it just feels that life would be much simpler without quantum physics.
Journal Reference: Loop Quantization of the Schwarzschild Black Hole
cool
All that is so interesting and, somehow, makes sense.
If the material falling into a black hole ever returns to our Universe, we should see it. We don’t. That tells me that if wormholes exist, they don’t lead anywhere in our Universe.
Interesting article, but I challenge some of its assumptions: Physical laws seem to break down inside a Black Hole singularity, but there is no evidence that Information travels to another location. Rather, Black Holes are shown to absorb Information as they accumulate stars and other mass. Similarly, Black Hole radiation is not understood as “lost” information; stuff radiates back out into our Universe, if at a terribly slow rate. No evidence suggests that Black Hole information is lost into another Universe.
Erm, when space-time is compressed, such as in a given gravitational body; a black hole, travel over long distances faster than the speed of light is possible because of the nature of such a thing. Imagine it as circles within circles, the closer to the center, the more circles there are, if said circles were space-time, it would take less “time” to travel from one ring to the next down the radius the farther towards the center you were.
We use the visual model of a “wormhole” because that is the natural observational model that events would take place.This is because of subjective human event perception relative to the phenomenon of the gravity well. The “wormhole” portion in between the two points on this model is a model made for the dimension being traveled in said quantum bridge.
A singularity cannot be defined as being in a measurable point in spacetime because in it is compression of said space time, this is what creates the theory of faster than light travel.
That is why the “bending cubes” model is used.
The material falling into a black hole does return to our universe. No violations have been observed.
Well were that the case we would see evidence. But we don’t. Further, velocity, speed, and even kinetic energy assume that gravity and time are different and independent entities. They are not. They are exactly the same thing.
The flaw in your position is that you don’t understand what is meant by “evaporation”. The matter that composes the singularity does not simply vanished, the mass is lost as radiation….and yeah…I know….thread necromancy…couldn’t help myself.
but my question is that is there a possible way to create this stable form of a wormhole that collapses on its own
but it is awesome
I think of the principals of water as it exists one location it travels to another destination. Therefore, material doesn't evaporate it must do something. Maybe its more than quantum or physics, maybe its a matter of one equation that creates one singularity. Its probably why the equation breaks down and fails, maybe its not a variable but a question of a singularity. I am no scientist but just thinking in theory. Really hurting my brain.