By James Plafke on December 16, 2013 at 8:31 am
An extraordinary theory that
has been getting cred lately is one that suggests our own universe is
actually a hologram. Now, a new study uncovers evidence that lends
further credibility to this terrifying theory.
Entertainment media has been exploring this concept for quite a while, with movies like The Matrix and Vanilla Sky becoming so prevalent in modern-day culture. The Men in Black trilogy
features short segments — acting as quick, but thought-provoking jokes —
that show some universe (ours or another) as being part of a much
larger one. The end of the first movie, for instance, shows that our
universe is the size of and held within a marble, kept in an alien’s bag
with other universe marbles. If we’re living within a hologram and made
to think it’s just our normal universe, there isn’t much of a way we’d
know if that’s how it was designed. A disturbing thought, so naturally,
some very smart scientists are trying to figure out if we live in the
universe as we know it — or not.
Back in 1997, the theory of a holographic universe
was first introduced by physicist Juan Maldacena, who theorized that
gravity arises from thin, vibrating strings that exist in nine
dimensions of space and another of time, whereas real life exists in a
universe without gravity. The comparison to the hologram is frequently
made because of the way a hologram is created; it’s a three-dimensional
image coded onto a two-dimensional surface. The theory suggests that the
universe is built in a similar fashion, the higher dimensional part
coded onto a flatter, lower dimensional part. So, on a hologram, only
one part is tangible — the lower dimensional surface onto which the
hologram is coded. The holographic image, though, merely looks
three-dimensional. You can’t, for example, touch it with your fingers.
Now, pretend that’s the structure of the universe.
Yes, it’s wacky.
The theory has been discussed
for a while now, and a quick Google search will yield many results over
the past few years covering the topic — mainly more tiny drops of
evidence in a big, mostly empty pool. However, with each drop, that pool
fills up just a little more. Two new drops, papers published on the
ArXiv preprint server, involve black holes, gravity, and string theory.
One paper examines the energy of a black hole, the position of its event
horizon, and its entropy. The other paper calculates the internal
energy of the corresponding lower dimensional cosmos — the one without
gravity. The calculations from both papers matched, and while it isn’t
definitive proof, the scientists feel it’s compelling evidence.
Basically,
if true, this means that the universe as we know it may be the result
of processes happening on some other surface or plane.
Maldacena
himself took a look at the computations, and confirmed that they appear
to be correct, but did note that the two universe models used in the
computations do not resemble our own. However, the computations do prove
that a universe could be the result of processes happening in a lower
dimension, and thus our universe could indeed be formed in this manner.
The computations in the two papers have created a model, and we’d just
need to figure out our universe’s appropriate data to plug in.
Thankfully,
even though strides have been made, it appears as though scientists
will be working to confirm whether or not the universe is a hologram for
some time. Ideally, they never figure it out, because the question that
comes next — what exactly are we, then — is much more terrifying.
Now read: Humanity’s infinitesimally tiny influence on the universe, or why we haven’t met any aliens yet
Research paper: arXiv:1311.7526 – “Quantum Near Horizon Geometry of Black 0-Brane” & arXiv:1311.5607 - ”Holographic description of quantum black hole on a computer”
Source: ExtremeTech
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