Dante Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 newscientist.com DRIVING through the countryside south of Hanover, it would be easy to miss the GEO600 experiment. From the outside, it doesn't look much: in the corner of a field stands an assortment of boxy temporary buildings, from which two long trenches emerge, at a right angle to each other, covered with corrugated iron. Underneath the metal sheets, however, lies a detector that stretches for 600 metres. 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." 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. 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. The "holographic principle" challenges our sensibilities. It seems hard to believe that you woke up, brushed your teeth and are reading this article because of something happening on the boundary of the universe. No one knows what it would mean for us if we really do live in a hologram, yet theorists have good reasons to believe that many aspects of the holographic principle are true. More information can be found here. What this all means is our universe could be a 3D hologram but encoded on a 2D surface, that our universe could exist on the crunched data of a black hole in another universe and that the black holes crunching data in our universe that looks 2D to us could be whole other 3D universes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluey Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 dude........ what the fuck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro_Link Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 What a load of bollocks! They're saying the Earth could be a hologram? then how come it's solid!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roostophe Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Do they think the general public will understand ANY of that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan_Dare Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 that's....wut? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomJcg Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I would say he's joking and it got out of hand, i'd need to see more evidence than "it didn't buffer anymore". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coolness Bears Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 *MIND IMPLOSION* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 What a load of bollocks! They're saying the Earth could be a hologram? then how come it's solid!? The universe is formed in 3D data which is soild matter over a 2D plane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro_Link Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Sorry what? Holograms aren't solid though! 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cube Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Fuck the WHAT??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DomJcg Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I don't wish to spoil the last post, but it said Our world may be a giant...cube I lol'd Anyways, This is stoopid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowV7 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Holy crap. It's Star Ocean! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyboy-the-Dane Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Meh, I was thinking more of the Matrix. But I haven't played Star Ocean, so ... Anyway, interesting theory - hard to get your head around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 the universe hologram does not work that way as normal hologram but it hard to example. think of cube, are eyes can see that is 3D and soild image. Here is the very over the head answer to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadowV7 Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 the universe hologram does not work that way as normal hologram but it hard to example. think of cube, are eyes can see that is 3D and soild image. I understood the first post, but this has kinda lost me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 I understood the first post, but this has kinda lost me blood is coming out my ears and eyes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shino Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Read this yesterday, way over my head. I don't mind the theory, who knows what benefits we can have from being in a holographic universe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paj! Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 So? I assumed everyone already knew we lived within one big hologram...? I mean, It's kinda obvious when I can do this... *fades, crackles, turns 2-D, then blinks out of existance* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 So? I assumed everyone already knew we lived within one big hologram...? I mean, It's kinda obvious when I can do this... *fades, crackles, turns 2-D, then blinks out of existance* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheikah Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Holy crap. It's Star Ocean! Haha, it's MGS2 and a bunch of RPGs that want to look intellectual but fail miserably, reducing the minds of people to putty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dante Posted January 16, 2009 Author Share Posted January 16, 2009 Haha, it's MGS2 and a bunch of RPGs that want to look intellectual but fail miserably, reducing the minds of people to putty. add Red Dwarf and Treehouse of Horror VI: Homer3 to that list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dannyboy-the-Dane Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 I find theories like this extremely fascinating. I just recently took a look at string theory and M theory. Fascinating stuff! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mokong Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Ok, i've spent the last half hour calling for the Arch and the exit but nothings happening... so i'm gonna go with, no holodeck here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The fish Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Sorry what? Holograms aren't solid though! We're talking about space-time here, not just light. Part of space is matter, and matter is solid. For the record, this whole thing is purely a hypothesis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chairdriver Posted January 17, 2009 Share Posted January 17, 2009 Holy crap. It's Star Ocean! My favourite game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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