Certain media sources have with the announcement of a possible black hole 26,000 light years away at W49B, mentioned the possibility of a wormhole. (I'm looking at you LA Times.) As a fan of many sci-fi programs which featured some variety of wormhole, I would welcome that. As a student of actual physics I don't think that such a thing can exist based on everything we think we know about black holes and quantum mechanics.


Classically black holes are regions of space where gravity is so strong that space and time become twisted beyond recognition. Effectively you “fall” into the black hole in the same way that we all move forward in time. One could no more escape from the black hole's interior than they could escape aging. That is assuming one could survive the process of being pulled into the black hole. This is a process which would result in being pulled apart atom by atom and then crushed into a tiny singularity at the very center of the hole.


Some theorist speculate that through various quantum devices we could circumvent these difficulties. There is still much to learn about quantum gravity. However, based on known physics, including known quantum mechanics it ain't gonna happen. Even if there is a way to create a worm hole, it would not occur naturally.

So if there is a wormhole 26,000 light years away we had better hope whoever created it stays 26,000 light years away from us. They would be people we don't want to mess with.