Humans may have gotten one step closer to figuring out how to make wormholes thanks to fascinating new research.
That's at least according to Hatim Saleh, a research fellow
at the University of Bristol and co-founder of the startup DotQuantum, who
claims to have invented what he calls "counterportation," which
"provides the first-ever practical blueprint for creating in the lab a
wormhole that verifiably bridges space," according to a statement.
Published in the journal Quantum Science and Technology,
Saleh's research focused on a novel quantum computing technique that should —
at least on paper — be able to reconstitute a small object across space
"without any particles crossing."
While it's an exciting prospect, realizing his vision will
require a lot more time and effort — not to mention next-generation quantum
computers that haven't been designed, let alone built yet. That is if it's even
possible at all.
Counterportation can be achieved, the study suggests, by the
construction of a small "local wormhole" in a lab — and as the press
release notes, plans are already underway to actually build the groundbreaking
technology described in the paper.
While it sounds a lot like teleportation, Saleh noted that
it's not quite the same thing.
"While counterportation achieves the end goal of
teleportation, namely disembodied transport, it remarkably does so without any
detectable information carriers traveling across," the quantum expert
said.
The concept relies on a unique aspect of quantum physics
called quantum entanglement, which allows "entirely separate quantum
particles" to "be correlated without ever interacting," as
University of Bristol optical communication systems professor John Rarity
explained in the statement.
"This correlation at a distance can then be used to
transport quantum information (qubits) from one location to another without a
particle having to traverse the space, creating what could be called a
traversable wormhole," he added.
To make counterportation a reality, however, is going to
take a whole lot more research — and future breakthroughs in the quantum
computing field.
"If counterportation is to be realized, an entirely new
type of quantum computer has to be built: an exchange-free one, where
communicating parties exchange no particles," said Saleh.
Unfortunately, these machines are still a distant dream as
"no one yet knows how to build" them, Saleh admitted.
When and if this exchange-free quantum computer is built,
per the researcher, it could prove revolutionary in the field.
"By contrast to large-scale quantum computers that
promise remarkable speed-ups, which no one yet knows how to build, the promise
of exchange-free quantum computers of even the smallest scale is to make
seemingly impossible tasks — such as counterportation — possible, by incorporating
space in a fundamental way alongside time," Saleh boasted.
While this definitely sounds like something out of the plot
of the 2014 film "Interstellar," reconstituting small objects by
leveraging the weirdness of the quantum world is an exciting proposition
whether it's a long shot or not.