The Wormhole That Might Have Been
Are we drawing close to an experimental proof a quantum gravity?
We’re not yet done with ER = EPR. When we last discussed this conjecture, which states that wormholes are equivalent to quantum entanglement, we noted it had been mathematically verified in an AdS toy universe. In 2022, that data was applied to a quantum computer to see if one could construct a holographic wormhole and send information across it. The otherwise non-traversable wormhole could be opened and kept stable through an application of negative energy. Such energy doesn’t exist in our macro universe, but in quantum mechanics, it does. Scientists thought it might be possible to demonstrate this in a quantum computer, even given the technology’s nascent nature.
In 2016, Ping Gao, Daniel Jafferis, and Aron Wall provided the proof that mathematically verified ER = EPR in an AdS universe. The 2022 team used this work as a foundation to simulate a simplified quantum space and build a holographic wormhole, and they succeeded in sending information through one opening and out the other. The transfer of information reminds me of early telephone experiments. There, a voice was broken down into information. In this case, a particle joined others at the opening of the holographic wormhole. Its information was disseminated through the other particles and then passed through the wormhole to the entangled particles on the other side. In the telephone analogy, there’s an actual wire through which electrons passed. In this case, the experiment simulated the exact mathematical signature of space being built between the openings. The disseminated information passed through to the other side and, like information being transformed back into a voice, regrouped into the particle that had been added to the first opening and which now appeared at the second.
The leaders behind this quantum computer experiment were Maria Spiropulu and Daniel Jafferis, who, along with their collaborators, demonstrated a pathway to proving that quantum information and physical geometry are deeply bound to the same underlying reality. The experiment gained worldwide attention at the time, but in the public mind, the reality of the experiment paled against the assumed promise of the headlines. We couldn’t see the value of constructing a holographic wormhole in a quantum computer if it didn’t lead to instantaneous travel across the cosmos. Meanwhile, for others, this looked like the first experimental proof of quantum gravity. As the first group missed the possible implications, the second proved to be overly optimistic. In that same year, the spikes that indicated success were replicated using standard, non-gravitational quantum scrambling. The 9-qubit model used by Spiropulu’s team was too great of a simplification to prove this was gravitational behavior and not standard quantum behavior.
When the team set out on the experiment, they knew the sophistication of quantum computers they needed was a decade away, but they decided to see what they might learn. That they succeeded came as a surprise, but for now, it’s come to be seen as a success in quantum computing and not the first experimental proof of quantum gravity. As quantum computers evolve, that 9-qubit model will one day be replaced by more complex systems. What scientists will be looking for this time is something known as fast scrambling, which is the dissemination of qubit information across the system at the fastest speed possible, as well as a transfer of complex information rather than a single particle that might achieve the same outcome under purely quantum terms.
In 2026, researchers made another attempt using an approach called the chaotic binary sparse SYK model. They moved away from a machine learning algorithm and mathematically designed a binary sparse version of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev (SYK) model. This time, although it used an 8-qubit setup, the spectral chaos (fast scrambling) was preserved, and their results measured a sign-dependent asymmetry in the telemetry. That asymmetry is the mathematical signature of a quantum system behaving like an actual gravitational dual. It proved that true chaotic scrambling can be captured on current hardware.
Other teams have used many-body interference protocols to test how entanglement entropy scales, preparing us for the day we can test models using hundreds of qubits instead of a few.
If a future experiment succeeds where the 2022 effort fell short, it will provide experimental evidence for the Holographic Principle, which states that our 3+1 dimensional experience is a hologram projected from a distant 2D quantum space. Second, it will bridge Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity. Third, it will give researchers a way to study and experiment with the interior of black holes, and finally, as experimental evidence for ER = EPR, it will alter the way we view physical space, demonstrating it to be a secondary property woven from quantum entanglements.
— Thaddeus Thomas
P.S. All corrections are welcome.