![]() While this theory doesn’t exist in any complete form, it’s the hoped-for reconciliation of the two major branches of modern theoretical physics: general relativity, which describes gravity, and quantum field theory, which covers the other fundamental forces of nature. Based on studies of black holes, some physicists think the holographic principle will be part of any reasonable quantum theory of gravity. The holographic principle may or may not work for our real Universe it’s an area of active research. And more importantly, the correspondence is exact: unlike a normal hologram, you wouldn’t be able to peek around the edge of the cosmic hologram to notice that it’s actually flat. While neither of those models describes the real world, they show in principle that a lower-dimensional hologram could contain all the information of a more complex cosmos. The idea derives from an interesting mathematical correspondence between two theories: a five-dimensional toy universe filled with a variation of dark energy, the stuff that makes our real Universe accelerate) and a four-dimensional toy universe with no gravity. The holographic principle is a slightly different matter. The illusion isn’t perfect: nobody but Homer Simpson would be fooled into thinking the hologram of a donut was actually a donut. ![]() The third dimension is encoded in the viewing surface, tricking our eyes into seeing depth that isn’t there. To see why this is, though, we need to look more closely at the holographic principle.Īn ordinary hologram is typically constructed by using lasers to scan three-dimensional objects, resulting in a picture that looks different depending on the angle of viewing. However, not everyone who studies the topic agrees on whether holographic noise exists or not, and failure to detect anything won’t tell us if the Universe is a hologram or not. The Holometer is starting operations to detect hypothetical “holographic noise”: vibrations in the structure of spacetime caused by the encoding of the third dimension in the other two. ![]() Their experiment is known as the Holometer, located at Fermilab in Illinois. However, a few researchers think we might be able to detect some discrepancies between the three dimensions of space we perceive and a lower-dimensional hologram in the structure of spacetime on the very microscopic level. The holographic principle isn’t a theory that describes our Universe yet: it’s more a fascinating conjecture that might let us solve some thorny problems in fundamental physics someday. Because the concept is similar to a hologram, the idea is known as the holographic principle, and it’s a hot topic among those trying to understand the quantum nature of gravity. Other models, such as string theory, propose more dimensions, but those are coiled up too small to be seen.īut there’s another idea: maybe one of the ordinary three dimensions of space is unnecessary for a full understanding of the Universe, with the “depth” information encoded in the other dimensions. Together those are known as spacetime, which is the background of our successful theories describing the forces governing matter and the cosmos itself. ![]() The Universe we inhabit seems to be four-dimensional: the three dimensions of height, length, and depth, along with time.
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