A group ofphysicists have delivered what has been defined by the journal Nature as the“clearest evidence yet” that our universe nothing but just a hologram.
The newstudy could help settle one of modern physics’ most persistent problems: theapparent contradictions between the different models of the universe asdescribed by quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.
The two newscientific papers are the conclusion of years’ work led by Yoshifumi Hyakutakeof Ibaraki University in Japan, and deal with theoretical calculations of theenergies of black holes in different universes.
Theindication of the universe existing as a ‘hologram’ doesn’t refer to aMatrix-like illusion, but the concept that the three dimensions we observe areactually just “painted” onto the cosmological horizon, the border of the knownuniverse. If this sounds contradictory or paradoxical, try to imagine aholographic picture that changes as you move it. Though the picture is twodimensional, detecting it from different locations generates the illusion thaтιт is 3D.This model of the universe helps explain some variations betweengeneral relativity (Einstein’s theory) and quantum physics. While Einstein’swork reinforces much of modern physics, at certain limits (for example in themiddle of a black hole) the principles he drawn break down and the laws ofquantum physics take over.
Thetraditional method of integration these two models has come from the 1997 workof theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena, whose ideas constructed upon stringtheory. This is one of the most well appreciated ‘theories of everything’(Stephen Hawking is a fan) and it suggests that one-dimensional vibratingobjects known as ‘strings’ are the basic particles of the universe. Maldacena has greeted the new study byHyakutake and his team, telling the journal Nature that the results are “aninteresting way to test many ideas in quantum gravity and string theory.”
LeonardSusskind, a theoretical physicist considered as one of the fathers of stringtheory, added that the study by the Japanese team “numerically confirmed, perhapsfor the first time, something we were fairly sure had to be true, but was stilla conjecture.”
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