Our Universe may be a giant hologram- New Scientist

[Ichingcarpenter]

New Scientist:
Jan 2009




>>> snip............For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not detected any gravitational waves so far, but it might inadvertently have made the most important discovery in physics for half a century.

For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.

If this doesn't blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: "If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.">>>>>snip

The idea that we live in a hologram probably sounds absurd, but it is a natural extension of our best understanding of black holes, and something with a pretty firm theoretical footing. It has also been surprisingly helpful for physicists wrestling with theories of how the universe works at its most fundamental level.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?page=1


Three page story at New Scientist.

[SheilaT]

1. I've also seen some pretty serious stuff out there

suggesting that we are actually living in a computer simulation.

[DBoon]

15. with the bit resolution being the Plank length

weird

[liberal N proud]

2. Que the theme from Twilight Zone

I think I actually saw an episode of Twilight Zone that suggested something similar.

[tridim]

3. Different, but similar.. A real photograph of gravitational lensing.

Why can we see these artifacts and not gravitational waves? They're essentially the same thing.

[thereismore]

8. Not the same. Lensing is a static phenomenon, waves are dynamical.

Waves require things happening fast, like rotation, or explosions. Lensing just reflects static non-Euclidean geometry of space.

[tridim]

12. But wouldn't it disprove the hologram theory?

[thereismore]

24. No. The hologram theory is for scales much shorter than the wavelength of gravitational waves.

It is literally different physics. Large scale is geometry of spacetime (this includes lensing and gravity waves). Short scales is where general theory of relativity breaks down and quantum gravity enters. This is the realm of the hologram idea.

[Bill McBlueState]

28. the "artifacts" are visible light

Gravitational waves aren't light at all. It doesn't seem odd (to me, at least) that we can see one but not the other.

[chaplainM]

4. Thinking about this makes my brain hurt

...but in a good way.

[JDPriestly]

5. OK -- just what does this mean?

Could it be that the universe is a giant puzzle created by some powerful wizard who wants to see whether we can solve the puzzle? Just joking, of course. But, then what if the whole universe turns out to be a joke? Very strange indeed.

[Joanne98]

6. So what does this mean?

Holography (from the Greek, ὅλος-hólos whole + γραφή-grafē writing, drawing) is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that it appears as if the object is in the same position relative to the recording medium as it was when recorded. The image changes as the position and orientation of the viewing system changes in exactly the same way as if the object was still present, thus making the recorded image (hologram) appear three dimensional. Holograms can also be made using other types of waves.

The technique of holography can also be used to optically store, retrieve, and process information. While holography is commonly used to display static 3-D pictures, it is not yet possible to generate arbitrary scenes by a holographic volumetric display.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holography

The universe is a recorded image?

[bananas]

21. It means the universe is two-dimensional, not three-dimensional

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/9409089

[damntexdem]

7. I don't mind living in a giant cosmic hologram.

But a small one that would fit on a desk -- that I would find objectionable.

[JuniperLea]

10. Hologram envy could be a whole new area of study:) eom

[JuniperLea]

9. Experiments in Existentialism...

We are alive through our thoughts. Our world is a petri dish, being observed by Marcel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Buddha, and St. Augustine...

[roguevalley]

26. so, if I get this right, the universe is a hologram that can be shaped

by our thoughts and will. if you want to be X, you can will it. Enough thoughts based on an objective creates the objective within the holographic and maleable environment that contains us, thought creatures. Ok. Everyone together ... ALL WE ARE SAAAAAYINGGGGGG, IS GIVE PEACE A CHANNNNCCCCEEEEEEEEE!

[GoesTo11]

11. That explains where my 401k went.

It was just a mirage.

[wtbymark]

13. I thought they told us in the 60's..

Not to eat the brown acid!
This guy didn't listen.

When will scientists realize that until they can quantify mental apetition. They will never answer these questions. They can't even study it. Gravity, dark matter, zero point energy, etc. You will never be able to quantify. If you've reached the end of quantifiable physics, you either need to step out of the scientific box, or call it a milenium - ur done.

[tridim]

14. Man will never be able to fly.

;)

[RC]

17. If man tries to go faster than 60 mph, he will die of suffocation because

the wind will take his breath away.

[laconicsax]

20. And let us not forget, protons and neutrons are indivisible.

[bananas]

23. You are like a hologram, there's calm in your eye

I am just a dreamer, but you are just a dream
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/n/neil+young/like+a+hurricane_20099051.html

[Ichingcarpenter]

16. Indeterminacy of Holographic Quantum Geometry

Craig J. Hogan

University of Chicago and Fermilab

An efective theory based on wave optics is used to describe indeterminacy of position in holographic spacetime with a UV cutoff at the Planck scale. Wavefunctions describing spacetime positions are modeled as complex disturbances of quasi-monochromatic radiation. It is shown that the product of standard deviations of two position wavefunctions in the plane of a holographic light sheet is equal to the product of their normal separation and the Planck length. For macroscopically separated positions the transverse uncertainty is much larger than the Planck length, and is predicted to be observable as a "holographic noise" in relative position with a distinctive shear spatial character, and an absolutely normalized frequency spectrum with no parameters once the fundamental wavelength is fixed from the theory of gravitational thermodynamics. The spectrum of holographic noise is estimated for the GEO600 interferometric gravitational-wave detector, and is shown to approximately account for currently unexplained noise between about 300 and 1400Hz. In a holographic world, this result directly and precisely measures the fundamental minimum interval of time.

This is the Abstract of a paper that could be correct, and fundamental.

Rest of the paper: PDF... .http://www.fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/1_Indeterminacy_of_holographic_quantum_geometry.pdf


The paper is way over my head but still interesting.

[pokerfan]

18. It's a matrix and Planck Time is the clock rate of the universe.

f_U = 1/t_P = 1 / 5.39124 x 10^-24 s = 1.85486085 × 10²³ = 185 ZHz

[screembloodymurder]

19. Hmmm ... can we switch channels?

;)

[Poll_Blind]

22. So what cute animation plays when God tilts the universe to and fro?

PB

[Longhorn Liberal]

25. The Big Bang

would be my guess.

[AntiFascist]

27. So if I knew how to say "Computer, End Program!" in just the right way....

could I then walk out into the hallway of the Starship Enterprise?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Whenever I read cosmology articles in The Scientific American,

I find stuff like this, stuff that the editor of a science fiction magazine would probably reject as "too far-fetched."