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I'm using as a means of "long-distance travel" the generation and exploitation of Einstein-Rosen bridges, through quantum entanglement of black matter in different points of the galaxy, as a way to control entry and exit points of travel.

I know I'm stretching a lot of theory by connecting quantum entanglement and wormholes, but, in theory, would it be possible, and, if it were, how fast and what would be the consequences for travelling through said Einstein-Rosen bridges?

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    $\begingroup$ FYI it is generally worth holding off accepting an answer for a day or two, because users of this site can be found all around the world and might be asleep or at work at the moment. $\endgroup$
    – Starfish Prime
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 20:13
  • $\begingroup$ Also, it isn't entirely clear what you mean or expect from "quantum entanglement of black matter", but seeing as it wasn't mentioned in the accepted answer, maybe it didn't matter? $\endgroup$
    – Starfish Prime
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 20:14
  • $\begingroup$ @StarfishPrime I added it just to explain the mechanics it would work on the fictional world, but it's not relevant to the answer, since we have little to none knowledge about black matter! I'm new to the site, but if it's unhelpful or anything like it I can edit it and remove. $\endgroup$
    – th0bard
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 20:21
  • $\begingroup$ @Starfish Prime If the 'quantum entanglement of black matter didn't matter' would it be black matter, invisible matter, or non-matter? $\endgroup$
    – Justin Thyme the Second
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 0:47
  • $\begingroup$ @JustinThymetheSecond I'll go for "doesn't-matter". Star Trek eat your heart out. $\endgroup$
    – Starfish Prime
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 8:37

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I think there's a NOVA special that talks about this.

IIRC, the main problems are:

  • these wormholes are microscopically small, so far too small to be of any practical use
  • there's intense radiation, so anyone that goes through would be cooked to death
  • the wormholes only exist for fractions of a second, something like the Planck time

Furthermore, I think quantum entanglement doesn't have anything to do with this.

It's thought that wormholes -- if they exist at all -- occur naturally at super-microscopic scales, at the level of quantum foam. They pop into existence and then pop back out of it, all on their own:

The quantum foam hypothesis is sometimes used to suggest that tiny wormholes might appear and disappear spontaneously at the Planck scale, and stable versions of such wormholes have been suggested as dark matter candidates. -- Wikipedia

But in direct answer to your question:

Theoretically, a wormhole might connect extremely long distances such as a billion light years, or short distances such as a few meters, or different points in time, or even different universes. -- Wikipedia

There is currently no even semi-plausible way to accomplish this, or anything like it. Doing so probably requires discovering matter than has negative mass (aka "exotic matter"), and then almost literally fighting and defeating a black hole.

None of this has ever stopped a sci-fi author from using wormholes in a story. Don't let it stop you, either.

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  • $\begingroup$ In principle they could be made larger and kept open longer if we discovered and made use of matter with negative energy/mass, which is not ruled out by general relativity. $\endgroup$
    – Shufflepants
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 5:56
  • $\begingroup$ The term "exotic matter" is overloaded. One type of exotic matter is matter with negative mass, but there are others, otherwise very good answer! $\endgroup$
    – D. Kovács
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 9:44
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enter image description here

Prof. Lenny Len Len Junior Susskind suspects Einstein Rosen Bridges are formed by entangling black holes. He talks about it either here or in one of his many other online lectures. It's part of a wider idea that entanglement is exactly the stuff that makes one region of space be adjacent to another.

I believe the concensus among physicists is this MIGHT be true. If so then two (maximally) entangled black holes have a shared interior. Meaning you can jump into yours on Earth and I can jump into mine on Andromeda and we can shake hands. But we cannot then jump outside the shared interior because of black hole stuff.

These pairs of black holes can be made for example by entangling two particles with each other, and sending one to the left and one to the right. Then entangle another pair and send them in either direction. Repeat until you get enough particles on each side to form black holes.

This does not allow sending information faster than lightspeed because we have to push the black holes apart in the first place. This takes at least 2.5 million years.

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"Einstein-Rosen bridge" specifically refers to the connection between the two exterior regions in the maximally extended Schwarzschild spacetime, which is shaped like this:

The two diamonds are the exterior regions. Nothing (except a tachyon) can have a worldline inclined by more than 45° to the vertical in that diagram, so nothing can get from one diamond to the other, even though the manifold is connected.

So the straight answer to the question is no. Writers who care about these niceties opt for other kinds of wormholes, usually the exotic-matter-stabilized kind, but those aren't Einstein-Rosen bridges.

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  • $\begingroup$ What is the picture? $\endgroup$
    – Daron
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 22:14
  • $\begingroup$ @Daron It's a Penrose diagram of the full Schwarzschild geometry. Usually they have more stuff drawn on them (examples). $\endgroup$
    – benrg
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 23:16

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