Did physicists make a wormhole in the lab?

Scientists made headlines for supposedly generating a wormhole. The research, reported in Nature, involves the use of a quantum computer to simulate a wormhole in a simplified model of physics.

Soon after the news broke, physicists and experts in quantum computing expressed scepticism that a wormhole had in fact been created.

Media coverage was chaotic. Outlets reported that physicists had created a theoretical wormhole, a holographic wormhole or perhaps a small, crummy wormhole, and that Google’s quantum computer suggests wormholes are real. Other outlets soberly offered the news that no, physicists didn’t make a wormhole at all.

If this has you confused, you’re not alone! What’s going on?

Did physicists make a wormhole in the lab? Not quite, but a new experiment hints at the future of quantum simulations