Protons, quantum entanglement, and a black hole walk into a bar.
This joke might actually go somewhere thanks to the recent discovery that fragments of a proton's interior exhibit maximum quantum entanglement — a find that, bizarrely, could point to another, much larger thermodynamic object: black holes, according to a recent study published in the European Physical Journal C.
While, no — no one is talking about a literal black hole hidden inside of a proton (that doesn't make sense), discovering similar physics on such a tiny scale signifies a rare overlap in the way we describe the physical universe — where theories about extremely big things also describe hidden features of unspeakably small things.
Inside protons, there are several fragments that need to be maximally entangled with one another — if this isn't the case, then theoretical predictions wouldn't match data from experiments, according to the study. The model described by the theory allows the scientists to propose that, contrary to consensus, the physics going on inside protons might have a lot in common with entropy or temperature.
And these processes are most pronounced when dealing with exotic objects, like black holes.
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