Month: September 2022

SO ENDS this first of two weekends on a provocative view of biology by a group of physicists and astrophysicists. There was a lost cartoon by Shoe that asked: “Is this brilliance or complex nonsense?” Biologists are not prone to out-of-the-box hypothetical thinking like physicists, and could greatly benefit from this kind of speculation. https://www.mdpi.com/2073-8994/12/8/1214/htm View in LinkedIn

DISTINCTION OF OPPOSITES. “A BH “sucks in” matter that crosses its horizon which, in turn, cannot come out, while a WH “spews out” matter which, in turn, cannot get in.” (BH = black hole; WH = white hole). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51081-7_62 View in LinkedIn

WORMHOLE ORIGINS. “This idea of an existing connection in spacetime was taken further by Einstein himself in 1935, together with the Israeli-American physicist Nathan Rosen, and their work has led to a solution known as the Einstein–Rosen bridge, also known as a wormhole connecting a BH and a WH.” (BH = black hole; WH = white hole). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51081-7_62 View in LinkedIn

NAMING WORMHOLES. “The term “wormhole” seems to have been coined by Wheeler in the mid 1950s. The importance and the possibility of the existence of WHs was particularly emphasized by the Russian cosmologist Igor Novikov in the early 1960s.” (WH = white hole). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51081-7_62 View in LinkedIn

STATUS OF WORMHOLES 2020. “Presently, there is no evidence of the existence of WHs. Pedagogically they are very interesting and students studying GR are most often exposed to their studies. It is expected that when quantum gravity is better understood that BHs, WHs and wormholes might play an important role in our understanding of spacetime and perhaps even in understanding the origin of the Big Bang.” (GR = General Relativity; BH = black hole; WH = white hole). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51081-7_62 View in LinkedIn

IN PUBLIC IMAGINATION. “It is amazing how much attention has been given in recent years to the BH-wormhole -WH phenomenon both by professionals and the public alike.” (BH = black hole; WH = white hole). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51081-7_62 View in LinkedIn

ORIGINS. “Unlike a BH, it is not clear how a WH would arise in Nature. Quantum gravity might give us a clue on this.” (BH = black hole; WH = white hole). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-51081-7_62 View in LinkedIn