The Universe As Hologram

Several readers sent in news of theoretical work bolstering the proposition that the universe may be a hologram. The story begins at the German experiment GEO600, a laser inteferometer looking for gravity waves. For years, researchers there have been locating and eliminating sources of interference and noise from the experiment (they have not yet seen a gravity wave). For months they have been puzzling over a source of noise they could not explain. Then Craig Hogan, a Fermilab physicist, approached them with a possible answer: that GEO600 may have stumbled upon a fundamental limit where space-time stops behaving like a smooth continuum and instead dissolves into "grains." The "holographic principle" suggests that the universe at small scales would be "blurry," its smallest features far larger than Planck scale, and possibly accessible to current technology such as the GEO600. The holographic principle, if borne out, could help distinguish among competing theories of quantum gravity, but "We think it's at least a year too early to get excited," the lead GEO600 scientist said.

Comments

Alrighty then

[Jonah Bomber]

[pulls out 3-D glasses]

Does this mean ...

[wtansill]

That we're all living on a small anti-counterfeiting patch on God's MasterCard?

Re:Does this mean ...

[Theolojin]

That we're all living on a small anti-counterfeiting patch on God's MasterCard?

You know He's omnipresent, right? God doesn't use MasterCard. He uses Visa since it's everywhere He wants to be.

Oh, my. Sorry. That was really bad.

Re:Does this mean ...

[misterooga]

no, no... it was priceless!

Let's see if it's true...

[The_Quinn]

"Computer, arch"

...

Nope, not a hologram.

Re:Let's see if it's true...

[ZorbaTHut]

Or the Holodeck is just broken.

Again.

So...

[sxltrex]

There is no spoon?

Huh?

[Locke2005]

He showed that the physics inside a hypothetical universe with five dimensions and shaped like a Pringle is the same as the physics taking place on the four-dimensional boundary.
[checks calendar] No, it's not April yet... that settles it then -- we must be living on a giant potato chip! Precisely the type of universe one would expect a Flying Spaghetti Monster to design!

And so...

[mcmonkey]

The small anti-counterfeiting patch on my MasterCard could be...

One tiny little universe.

"A Year Too Early?"

[aquatone282]

Screw that! I'm getting drunk NOW!

Woohoo!

Re:Don't panic

[Anonymous Coward]

it is interesting to note that the universe is mainly built out of second order laws. This means that in many cases there are a small number of poles or zeros that can control macroscopic behaviour and often analytic solutions exist. This would be how a desiginer would do it. given a choice one chooses a qaudradic over a 6th order polynomial since an anytic solution to the zeros exits.

To say that certain aspects of the universe can be modeled using elegant mathematics, and that this implies a designer is a non sequitor. If I was God, I would have used 6th order equations, all the way down, just to show how awesome at math I was.

Re:Plato

[daeley]

What do you call that field which is practiced by the people we generally call "philosophers?"

I think the current parlance is "food preparation technicians."

I see Star Trek possibilities...

[CFBMoo1]

From Me: Universe, please start beach babe program 101.

From Universe: Fatal error in beach babe execution. Dork array value out of range.

*sigh*

Nevermind...

Re:Don't panic

[dotancohen]

If I was God, I would have used 6th order equations, all the way down, just to show how awesome at math I was.

What's wrong with the turtles?

Re:Don't panic

[evilviper]

3 Who created the designer?

Evolution.