Did physicists prove wormholes really do exist in 2022?

Of all the scientific discoveries in 2022, one of the most exciting finds must have been the announcement that wormholes really do exist and that scientists were actually able to simulate them in a computer according to a group of researchers who said they did just that. But did they really create a rift in time and space?

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) shocked the scientific world earlier in November 2022 when they announced they had simulated two baby wormholes in a computer.

Not only were the physicists from Caltech able to “create” two wormholes, but they also claimed to have sent a message between the two—proving that traveling through a space-time tunnel was possible. 

Hailed as a groundbreaking theoretical discovery, the experiment was published in the scientific journal Nature in November, and it took the scientific world by storm. 

Maria Spiropulu, a co-author of the innovative study, described her team's creation as having the characteristics of a “baby wormhole” and said that she hoped to make “adult wormholes and toddler wormholes step-by-step”.

Based on the quantum information she teleported, it does appear as if the study's authors were able to stimulate a traversable wormhole without rupturing space and time. 

These previously theoretical assumptions were first proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, and have since become known as Einstein-Rosen Bridges. 

Co-author of the study and famed Fermilab physicist Joesph Lykken noted that their discovery “looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. So that’s what we can say at this point,” alluding to the idea that they really did create a wormhole. 

Lykken added, “we have something that in terms of the properties we look at, looks like a wormhole.” 

Photo by Twitter @jlykken

However, some experts are urging caution since the experiment was based on simplistic modeling that did not necessarily reveal anything new about quantum physics. 

“I’d say that this doesn’t teach us anything about quantum gravity that we didn’t already know,” said Daniel Harlow, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT). 

“On the other hand,” Harlow added, “I think it is exciting as a technical achievement because if we can’t even do this (and until now we couldn’t), then simulating more interesting quantum gravity theories would certainly be off the table.”

Both Spiropulu and Lykken said that the science behind being able to transport people or other living beings through a wormhole was still very far off.

“Experimentally, for me,” Spiropulu told reporters when questioned during a video briefing, “I will tell you that it’s very, very far away. 

“People come to me and they ask me, ‘Can you put your dog in the wormhole?’ So, no,” Spiropulu added, “That’s a huge leap.”

Lykken added that there is “a difference between something being possible in principle and possible in reality.”

“So don’t hold your breath about sending your dog through the wormhole,” Lykken continued, “but you have to start somewhere. And I think to me it’s just exciting that we’re able to get our hands on this at all.”

In March 2023, Quanta Magazine reported that a separate group of physicists reviewed the research by Spiropulu and her co-authors and found that they had created something wormhole-like, but not something that was a true holographic wormhole. 

Quanta Magazine noted that the details of what actually occurred and if a real holographic wormhole was created are being hammered out through peer-reviewed publications. But the physics outlet spoke with five independent experts who agreed that the new evidence "seriously challenges" the findings of the wormhole study.