Can wormholes exist? Most likely no

Wormhole Intergalactic ability to cut a path. A tunnel through space-time, allowing courageous travelers to ride between star systems, without even approaching the speed of light.

Wormholes are the workhorse of sci-fi interstellar civilizations in books and cinema, because they solve the annoying problem of a work of art: “If you stick to physics, then 99.999999% of our entire history will be as interesting as watching sleeping people.”
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But is it possible to do this? Is it possible to collapse and bend space-time, create a comfortable tunnel and realize all our galactic dreams?

In short: unlikely.
More: under the cut.

Be wary of the white hole

The concept of wormholes appeared when physicist Ludwig Flamm, and later Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen realized that black holes could be “stretched.” If we start solving the fantastically complex equations of the general theory of relativity, then the mechanism predicting the existence of black holes also predicts such a phenomenon as white holes. A white hole is about the way you imagine it. If the black hole event horizon marks a region of space from which it is impossible to escape after hitting it, then it is impossible to get beyond the horizon of the white hole, although everything inside it can escape.

The same mathematical calculations give a small prize: all black holes naturally connect with white holes through singularities, forming a spatial tunnel. Hooray wormholes, and here we are!

Or not. We have mountains of evidence for the existence of black holes, but white holes remain a mathematical fantasy. In the universe, there are no processes known to us that would form them, and even if they appeared, their natural instability would quickly destroy them. Yes, by the way, the mechanism of the appearance of black holes - the collapse of massive stars - automatically prevents the appearance of white holes that are symbiotic with them.

And even if they were formed (and they are not formed), the extreme gravity of reciprocal singularities would make the wormhole tunnel instantly stretch and tear faster than anything else could pass through it.

Death in a black hole

But you will not forbid anyone to play the fun game "what if". What if white holes can form naturally or can they be created? What if they can be stabilized? What if you can attach the singularity of the white hole to the black singularity and create a wormhole? What if? What if? What if?

Well, first of all, a trip on such a wormhole would be just disgusting. The entrance to the wormhole - “throat” - is located inside the horizon of the black hole event.

And this is a problem.

The very definition of the event horizon - its cosmic meaning of existence - is that after you have gone for it, you will not leave it. No It doesn't matter if there is a tunnel inside - you won’t go through it. Inside the black hole event horizon there is one direction: the city of Singularsk, a place of infinite density and gravity that suppresses everything in the world.

Suppose you entered the hole. You are observing light coming from another piece of the universe. If someone joins you, you can meet him and drink some tea. And die - a terrible death - rushing towards the singularity.

Of course not

Is there a way to create a working wormhole instead of a terrible portal to inevitable destruction? Surprisingly, there is. Well, not 100% unambiguous "yes" for the "normal part of our universe." Rather, yes, "if we pretend."

To create a passable wormhole, two important obstacles need to be overcome. First, the entrance to the wormhole must be outside the event horizon. This will allow you to enter the wormhole and fly through it to the destination, without fear of meeting the singularity.

Secondly, the tunnel must be stable and strong. It must resist the extreme gravity of singularities and resist rupture when something flies through it.

And the material that solves both problems exists. But he has his own difficulty: negative mass.

That's it, the mass, only negative. A ring of negative mass material can be used to create a working and useful wormhole. Since the exotic nature of negative mass distorts spacetime in a special way, it inflates the entrance to the wormhole beyond the boundaries of the event horizon, and stabilizes the mouth of the wormhole. This is not very intuitive, but the mathematical calculations are correct.

But can there be such a substance? We saw a considerable piece of the universe, and so far have not seen negative masses. If she existed, she would have very strange properties. For example, according to Newton's laws, if you add some minuses to them, it turns out that a particle of negative mass would push a particle with a positive mass, and a particle with a positive mass would attract a particle with a negative mass. If two particles with opposite masses are arranged side by side, then they suddenly begin to accelerate in one direction and fly away to infinity together. Such behavior, like, should violate some law of the universe.

What about the Casimir effect, the strange and surprising attraction of two metal plates, due to the energy of the vacuum? It is often cited as an example, as the wrong behavior of the Universe and as a possible path to a negative mass. But Casimir’s strength is characterized by local negative pressure, not negative mass. We, of course, do not know everything about quantum gravity and the nature of space-time on extremely small scales. Can an advanced civilization open the way to a negative mass and control gravity as it should? Will a breakthrough in physics pave the way for mastering a wormhole?

Most likely no. There are too many things working against them. Working wormholes would violate so many rules of well-known (and well-proven) physics that it seems to me that it would be better to tackle some other tasks.

Some will accuse me of not being creative enough, but the Universe does not care about our creativity. The instruments of science are strict but fair; if the idea doesn't work, it doesn't work. In our universe, a great many wonderful mysteries, and we definitely have not yet revealed all the details of the work of the cosmos. But the wormhole, most likely, will not be there.