The vortex trip could be real, but would be very slow

The Avengers' first film culminated when an alien army shot down New York via a wormhole in the sky. New research shows that part of this is theoretically possible. (Hint: this is not the extraterrestrial armed party.)

According to a new study by Daniel Jafferis and Ping Gao of Harvard University and Aron Wall of Stanford University, wormholes, a shortcut between spatiotemporal spaces, may actually exist. The catch? The actual wormholes would not constitute an instant transport situation.

"It takes longer to cross these wormholes than to go straight," said Jafferis, "so they are not very useful for space travel."

The discovery, presented by Jafferis on Saturday at the April 2019 meeting of the American Physical Society in Denver, is more about quantum mechanics than intergalactic travel. His theory states that two black holes connected at a quantum level can act as a wormhole through which light can travel. This means that light and information can be extracted from a black hole.

"From an outside perspective, traveling through the wormhole is equivalent to quantum teleportation using entangled black holes," said Jafferis. "I think [this new research] will teach us profound things about the correspondence gauge / gravity, quantum gravity and maybe even a new way of formulating quantum mechanics. "

The week was big for the black holes. We humans have finally seen one with our own eyes: Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration have revealed the first direct image of a black hole last Wednesday.