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posted by hubie on Friday November 18 2022, @02:39AM   Printer-friendly
from the time-to-fire-up-the-Rocinante dept.

"You'll get to know the difference when you either die or you pass through":

A team of physicists from Sofia University in Bulgaria say that wormholes, which are hypothetical tunnels linking one part of the universe to another, might be hiding in plain sight — in the form of black holes, New Scientist reports.

Black holes have long puzzled scientists, gobbling up matter and never letting it escape.

But where does all of this matter go? Physicists have long toyed with the idea that these black holes could be leading to "white holes," or wells that spew out streams of particles and radiation.

These two ends could together form a wormhole, or an Einstein-Rosen bridge to be specific, which some physicists believe could stretch any amount of time and space, a tantalizing theory that could rewrite the laws of spacetime as we understand them today.

Now, the researchers suggest that the "throat" of a wormhole could look very similar to previously discovered black holes, like the monster Sagittarius A* which is believed to be lurking at the center of our galaxy.

"Ten years ago, wormholes were completely in the area of science fiction," team lead Petya Nedkova at Sofia University told New Scientist. "Now, they are coming forward to the frontiers of science and people are actively searching."

[...] The only way to really tell for sure would be to scan these celestial oddities with an even higher-resolution telescope.

The other option, of course, would be to risk it all by flinging yourself into a black hole.

"If you were nearby, you would find out too late," Nedkova told the publication. "You'll get to know the difference when you either die or you pass through."

Also see: Wormholes Could Be Hiding in Plain Sight

Journal Reference:
Valentin Deliyski, Galin Gyulchev, Petya Nedkova, and Stoytcho Yazadjiev, Polarized image of equatorial emission in horizonless spacetimes: Traversable wormholes, Phys. Rev. D, 106, 2022. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.106.104024


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday November 18 2022, @06:54PM (10 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday November 18 2022, @06:54PM (#1280388)

    A reasonable conclusion, but one unsupported by evidence. And which, if true, will NEVER be supported by evidence because we can't see inside the event horizon.

    All we know for sure is that current theory says that the mass stays there.

    HOWEVER - we don't actually have any evidence to confirm that. To do so we'd need to observe a black hole closely enough to precisely measure its change of mass while consuming something substantial. All we can actually see though is brief snapshots of black holes consuming things far smaller than them, much too far away to be able to measure the actual mass.

    In fact, even if the apparent mass grows as expected, we still couldn't say with certainty that things that enter the black hole stay there. From the perspective of an outside observer, everything that falls into a black hole is "snapshotted" as it crosses the event horizon. Information, including gravity, cannot move outwards from anywhere within the event horizon. Even Hawking radiation actually originates outside the black hole, and causes mass-loss due to virtual particles with negative mass-energy being captured (as a gross oversimplification).

    So if stuff eventually "pops out" of a black hole somewhere else in the universe, there would be no way for that information to get back to the event horizon. The gravitational influence of the mass would effectively be duplicated.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by requerdanos on Friday November 18 2022, @07:43PM (9 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 18 2022, @07:43PM (#1280397) Journal

    current theory says that the mass stays there.

    HOWEVER - we don't actually have any evidence to confirm that.

    One might argue that without the mass staying there, there would be no basis for the gravity by which the black hole itself is defined. The fact that there's enough gravity to identify something as a black hole is itself evidence that the mass is sitting at the center, I would argue.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday November 18 2022, @07:57PM (8 children)

      by Immerman (3985) on Friday November 18 2022, @07:57PM (#1280399)

      And as I pointed out - once that mass crosses the event horizon, it can no longer affect anything outside. NOTHING escapes the event horizon. Ever. If it's mass still had a gravitational effect on the outside universe then you'd still be able to detect the gravitational waves as it spiraled further inward, which is not possible. The mass could cease to exist moments later, and there's no way for the outside universe to ever know, even in theory.

      Functionally, a back hole begins and ends at the event horizon - what, if anything, is inside is unknowable from the outside.

      Of course that assumes black holes exist. Superstring theory for example posits "fuzzballs" instead - where the quantum wavefunctions form a composite structure just *slightly* larger than the event horizon, that's incapable of collapsing further, and would be indistinguishable except via close examination, since you'd still get near-infinite redshift at the surface rendering it "black" to all but the most sensitive of equipment.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2022, @11:54PM (7 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2022, @11:54PM (#1280419)

        Look, pal. You're the one fantasizing about weird physics. The mass is fucking there, it ain't gone anywhere. Charge too, and angular momentum. Whatever went in.... is still right there.

        • (Score: 2) by EJ on Saturday November 19 2022, @02:32AM (1 child)

          by EJ (2452) on Saturday November 19 2022, @02:32AM (#1280435)

          Except that you have no actual EVIDENCE that anything you're saying is true. All you have is someone else's speculation and theories.

          A black hole could be exactly what it sounds like: A literal HOLE in spacetime.

          Look at the water in your shower/tub when the plug is out at the drain. The water goes to the drain because it's a hole, just like how air flows toward a vacuum.

          It's a very reasonable theory that black holes can have such a strong effect on spacetime as to cause an actual tear in the "fabric" of the universe.

          You can't prove anything you said in your post.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @08:04PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @08:04PM (#1280539)

            It's true, if you ignore the mass, charge and angular momentum there's NOTHING THERE OMG!!111111

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @04:23AM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @04:23AM (#1280440)

          It gets weirder than that. As mass drops down a gravity well, you can extract energy. Inside an event horizon that energy cannot escape, E=MCC and all that, means that that energy has mass, and will also spiral down to the singularity at the center. Some dude a lot smarter than me calculated that by the time this process is complete the actual mass of the singularity is around 1054 times the mass of whatever formed the black hole. You just can't tell because the event horizon cloaks it.

          • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday November 19 2022, @05:52AM (3 children)

            by Immerman (3985) on Saturday November 19 2022, @05:52AM (#1280452)

            That bit doesn't actually work though.

            It's true that your kinetic energy is increasing, but your gravitational potential energy is simultaneously decreasing in lockstep. Gravitational potential energy is always negative, and spirals towards infinite negative energy as the falling object spirals towards infinite positive kinetic energy, and their sum will always be exactly equal to the original mass of the object.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @06:30AM (2 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2022, @06:30AM (#1280463)

              Yes, the negative gravitational energy cancels out the mass gain, but while it's sitting on the singularity that mass is still there. It's just at the bottom of a hole deep enough to cancel it out.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Saturday November 19 2022, @03:01PM (1 child)

                by Immerman (3985) on Saturday November 19 2022, @03:01PM (#1280501)

                Not if it were sitting though, only while still falling. And if there's truly a singularity at the center then I think it should be falling forever. Approaching infinite kinetic and negative potential energy with no silly 10^54 limitation.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2022, @03:31AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2022, @03:31AM (#1280588)

                  Just from memory here, but I think the 1054 was from when the mass-energy had collapsed to the Planck length in diameter. He couldn't say what would happen after that.