Magnetic Wormhole Demonstrated for First Time

Could we be a step closer to the future of interstellar space travel?

Physicists at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) have demonstrated for the first time a wormhole allowing two regions of space to be connected magnetically. The study, published in Nature revealed that the experiment was conducted using two magnetic monopoles, which aren’t observably evident in nature. The poles created a sort of ‘warp’ in which an object appeared to traverse space outside of the normal three dimensional realms into what can only be described as a fourth dimension. Researchers used a tri-layer model to sandwich superconducting material between two sheets of ferromagentic material in the shape of a sphere to create the wormhole. According to one researcher, the device “changes the topology of space, as if the inner region has been magnetically erased from space.”

Unlike prior models implemented by the team in 2014, this wormhole’s magnetic field cannot be detected by diagnostic devices. Speculative applications for this model outside of gravitational applications in interstellar space travel could be applied in the future of magnetic resonance imaging in medicine, improving efficiency of MRI’s and even perhaps allow for remote body scans of patients.

According to the study’s abstract:

“Wormholes are fascinating cosmological objects that can connect two distant regions of the universe. Because of their intriguing nature, constructing a wormhole in a lab seems a formidable task. A theoretical proposal by Greenleafet al. presented a strategy to build a wormhole for electromagnetic waves. Based on metamaterials, it could allow electromagnetic wave propagation between two points in space through an invisible tunnel. However, an actual realization has not been possible until now. Here we construct and experimentally demonstrate a magnetostatic wormhole. Using magnetic metamaterials and metasurfaces, our wormhole transfers the magnetic field from one point in space to another through a path that is magnetically undetectable. We experimentally show that the magnetic field from a source at one end of the wormhole appears at the other end as an isolated magnetic monopolar field, creating the illusion of a magnetic field propagating through a tunnel outside the 3D space.”

This new breakthrough, combined with news this week about recent efforts to define the possibility that objects could pass through a black hole and survive as well as attempts to view the black hole in the center of our galaxy make for exciting future possibilities.