We are living in a giant cosmic hologram

[Krynn72]

What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true

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."

The holograms you find on credit cards and banknotes are etched on two-dimensional plastic films. When light bounces off them, it recreates the appearance of a 3D image. In the 1990s physicists Leonard Susskind and Nobel prizewinner Gerard 't Hooft suggested that the same principle might apply to the universe as a whole. Our everyday experience might itself be a holographic projection of physical processes that take place on a distant, 2D surface.

Disclaimer:

No one - including Hogan - is yet claiming that GEO600 has found evidence that we live in a holographic universe. It is far too soon to say. "There could still be a mundane source of the noise," Hogan admits.

 

[VirusType2]

God damn. I wish I had some pot right now.

 

[the cow says moo]

Oh god, the Christian Scientists were right. Everything we know is just an illusion.

 

[Emporius]

Shit is awesome.

 

[Shakermaker]

What the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?

This was actually theorized by a fellow Dutchman not so long ago. Check this link out.

 

[Raziaar]

Our entire universe exists entirely on a holographic playing card of some unknown being.

 

[hot564231]

Isn't this basically saying that a universe can exist in an atom.

 

[Rizzo]

Duuuude... I have no idea what all this means, but duuuude.

 

[Warped]

deep stuff man, also that would be cool although not real, that if we look enough for it, see ourselves in the telescope some day

 

[DEATHMASTER]

HMMM

Spoiler

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I read the second quote as

No one - including Hulk Hogan - is yet claiming that GEO600 has found evidence that we live in a holographic universe. It is far too soon to say. "There could still be a mundane source of the noise," Hogan admits.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

How else would anyone read it?

ed: oh.

 

[Stigmata]

Our entire universe exists entirely on a holographic playing card of some unknown being.

God is a holographic Charizard.

 

[Shamrock]

D: D: D:

Awesome.

 

[YROC]

irl yu-gi-oh

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

God is a holographic Charizard.

irl yu-gi-oh

Sigh. Really?

...

I'm going to "predict" something really arbitrary, like all 3D space is actually located somewhere along on the inside of a giant time-sphere or something just in case someone else observes something that suggests it so I can take the credit for it.

 

[the cow says moo]

I'm going to "predict" something really arbitrary, like all 3D space is actually located somewhere along on the inside of a giant time-sphere or something just in case someone else observes something that suggests it so I can take the credit for it.

That's kinda what Hogin said in the article.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

That's kinda what Hogin said in the article.

FFFUUUUUUUUU---

 

[Stigmata]

Sigh. Really?

What, did you think nobody was going to make that joke?

Also, this theorypothesis (aside from not being new or original) is completely irrelevant until we can directly observe it. And even if it is true, it doesn't intrinsically hold any special relevance. If this is all "just a hologram" and our universe is a five-dimensional hologram in a larger, 8-dimensional container universe, what's so different about what we already experience now? We still can't access the container universe, and everything within our universe is internally consistent, just like it was before.

 

[Ennui]

Don't read into it too much, the holographic principle has been around for a while and people have been all hot and bothered about it since that article was published a few months ago. Cool idea but not particularly revolutionary. I talked to my ridiculous calculating machine math major roommate and he didn't seem to think it was all that big a deal. I just don't like how that article touts it as the biggest development in theoretical physics since relativity.

 

[Stigmata]

I just don't like how that article touts it as the biggest development in theoretical physics since relativity.

This is my least favourite part of it, and it's endemic of the much larger problem of exaggerated science journalism.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

This is my least favourite part of it, and it's endemic of the much larger problem of exaggerated science journalism.

Well how else are they going to get people to come read their damn paper?

 

[Warped]

i just want to someday zoom past the universe and see whats on the outside if anything at all. it'd be scary if we are even smaller than we think. like the universe is just a soap bubble in a bath tub

 

[Ravioli]

What the hell do these "scientists" do in their labs? Take LSD and write down their experiences? Whats next? The universe is actually a giant turd extruding from a dogs ass?

i call bullshit on this one

 

[VirusType2]

What the hell do these "scientists" do in their labs? Take LSD and write down their experiences? Whats next? The universe is actually a giant turd extruding from a dogs ass?

i call bullshit on this one

As stupid as this is, it made me laugh really hard.

 

[The Monkey]

Who gives a shit? How does this affect anybody's life?

 

[Acepilotf14]

Well, you may or may not be a hologram, rather than a monkey.

sorry to break it to you like this

 

[Rizzo]

Predict "it's just a hologram" defense in court.

 

[Dynasty]

To be honest, this kind of thing is completely possible.

Those who shrug it all off are just naive. Think back to when it was first suggested that the Earth wasnt flat. Complete nonsense in alot of people's minds, and they got on with their life.

''Its not what you know, its what you can prove in court''. Same applies here. Its a perfectly possible theory until proven otherwise.

***t, we could all be living in the Matrix for all we know.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

So what if a meteor hits a hologram of someone?

 

[nurizeko]

Sigh. Really?

...

I'm going to "predict" something really arbitrary, like all 3D space is actually located somewhere along on the inside of a giant time-sphere or something just in case someone else observes something that suggests it so I can take the credit for it.

This TBH. Pretty easy to just theorycraft. Granted I am no physicist so I do not know the math/science behind this guys hypothesis but it just seems a bit too zaney even for quantum mechanics and stuff.I say this because ussually I can sorta get my brain round most high-physics theory, but this is....just strange...

Usually if it sounds like something that a crazy hobo thought up, it usually is.

What the hell do these "scientists" do in their labs? Take LSD and write down their experiences? Whats next? The universe is actually a giant turd extruding from a dogs ass?

i call bullshit on this one

Edit:

Those who shrug it all off are just naive. Think back to when it was first suggested that the Earth wasnt flat. Complete nonsense in alot of people's minds, and they got on with their life.

FYI humans have known the world is round for a very very long time. Before Columbus (his journey was mocked because they thought he would die of thirst long before he reached asia, not because he would fall off the edge of the world...ugh ignorance!).

But since we're on the subject, I propose that the universe is in fact a giant disc sitting on the backs of 4 elephants which are standing on the shell of a giant celestial turtle that slowly swims through the multiverse.

 

[VirusType2]

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.

I think what they are trying to say is: "We found the pixels!"

 

[Remus]

I think what they are trying to say is: "We found the pixels!"

Best explanation so far.

 

[jverne]

What if the whole universe is just a reality show for a transcendent race and we all do shit that seems important to us but to them is just like a bad episode of Dr. Phil

Think of it!?

 

[the cow says moo]

I think what they are trying to say is: "We found the pixels!"

It's more like, "We found the reflections of the pixels, which are actually much larger than the actual pixels."

 

[Raziaar]

Usually if it sounds like something that a crazy hobo thought up, it usually is.

I dunno man, if somebody described to me things like Quasars and and Black Holes when I knew nothing about them... I probably would have called them crazy too.

"Places where nothing can escape, not even light? Something in space that shoots out giant jets of energy that are built around these super massive "black holes"? Take your meds you bum!"

 

[Mogi67]

Those who shrug it all off are just naive. Think back to when it was first suggested that the Earth wasnt flat. Complete nonsense in alot of people's minds, and they got on with their life..

What the **** are you talking about dude. The Greeks knew that the earth was spherical. The idea that midieval Christianity embraced flat earth theory is historically unfounded. Most of the notable theologians of the middle ages believed in a spherical earth (motha****in aquinas).

 

[No Limit]

I read this article some while back, really interesting read. I would be curious to know how much progress they made in this theory in the year since it's been published.

What the **** are you talking about dude. The Greeks knew that the earth was spherical. The idea that midieval Christianity embraced flat earth theory is historically unfounded. Most of the notable theologians of the middle ages believed in a spherical earth (motha****in aquinas).

Although scientists of the time might have believed that for many people the idea was absolutely absurd or it was blasphemy. So the point is just because we might think this idea is absurd there are real evidance behind the claim even if that evidance isn't understood by average people.

And no, the fact that mideval christianity embraced flat earth theory is not historically unfounded. Saying the earth was round totally contradicted the bible and I believe some people got hung as a result.

 

[MuToiD_MaN]

Wow, I wish I got a big penis for claiming the earth is flat

 

[Mogi67]

I read this article some while back, really interesting read. I would be curious to know how much progress they made in this theory in the year since it's been published.



And no, the fact that mideval christianity embraced flat earth theory is not historically unfounded. Saying the earth was round totally contradicted the bible and I believe some people got hung as a result.

No it didn't. You believe some people got hung? That's not a valid argument dude. Augustine and Aquinas, the two most important and influential theologians of the church believed that the earth was spherical, so you can't say the church ruled otherwise.

Second, the bible doesn't say the Earth is flat. There's a reference in Isaiah as well as a couple in the book of Job.
" He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth" Isaiah 40:22

You're living a lie