Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram(nature.com)
nature.com
Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram
http://www.nature.com/news/simulations-back-up-theory-that-universe-is-a-hologram-1.14328
140 comments
From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle):
"The holographic principle is a property of quantum gravity and string theories that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region—preferably a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string-theory interpretation by Leonard Susskind[1] who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn.[1][2] As pointed out by Raphael Bousso,[3] Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. In a larger sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scales and at low energies."
So the analogy is that the field inside the volume can be completely described by some function over the bounding surface of the volume, similar to how the light field captured by a hologram is projected and recorded on a flat glass or film plane. I can visualize that pretty easily, but I don't know enough to tie that to some concrete relationship to the fundamental physical forces of the universe.
"The holographic principle is a property of quantum gravity and string theories that states that the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region—preferably a light-like boundary like a gravitational horizon. First proposed by Gerard 't Hooft, it was given a precise string-theory interpretation by Leonard Susskind[1] who combined his ideas with previous ones of 't Hooft and Charles Thorn.[1][2] As pointed out by Raphael Bousso,[3] Thorn observed in 1978 that string theory admits a lower-dimensional description in which gravity emerges from it in what would now be called a holographic way. In a larger sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon, such that the three dimensions we observe are only an effective description at macroscopic scales and at low energies."
So the analogy is that the field inside the volume can be completely described by some function over the bounding surface of the volume, similar to how the light field captured by a hologram is projected and recorded on a flat glass or film plane. I can visualize that pretty easily, but I don't know enough to tie that to some concrete relationship to the fundamental physical forces of the universe.
After reading this, it reminded me of Cauchy's integral formula. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cauchy%27s_integral_formula):
"In mathematics, Cauchy's integral formula, named after Augustin-Louis Cauchy, is a central statement in complex analysis. It expresses the fact that a holomorphic function defined on a disk is completely determined by its values on the boundary of the disk, and it provides integral formulas for all derivatives of a holomorphic function. Cauchy's formula shows that, in complex analysis, "differentiation is equivalent to integration": complex differentiation, like integration, behaves well under uniform limits – a result denied in real analysis."
Does anyone who knows this stuff better than me know if there's any meaningful connection?
"In mathematics, Cauchy's integral formula, named after Augustin-Louis Cauchy, is a central statement in complex analysis. It expresses the fact that a holomorphic function defined on a disk is completely determined by its values on the boundary of the disk, and it provides integral formulas for all derivatives of a holomorphic function. Cauchy's formula shows that, in complex analysis, "differentiation is equivalent to integration": complex differentiation, like integration, behaves well under uniform limits – a result denied in real analysis."
Does anyone who knows this stuff better than me know if there's any meaningful connection?
It's similar to Green's Theorem, a special case of Stokes' Theorem. The latter is probably very closely related to the ideas underpinning the holographic principal (just guessing; my background is more math than physics, though I love both).
I understood some of those words.
It means in essence, that we live in the two-dimensional space, which contains just enough information (thanks to interference patterns), to be projectable to the 3rd dimension. In holographic duality, this is a way to derive a more complex dimension from the next lowest dimension. It is thought that the four-dimensional space, which you may have just been thinking about, exists due to distant entangled quarks and may be the thing we call space-time. The holy grail every physicist is searching for is "gravity". Nobody on earth knows for sure what gravity exactly is. But it is thought to exist in the fifth-dimension "bends & shapes the our space-time.
Don't confuse this with the simulated universe theory, as I initially did. That's a whole nother story.
Time is believed to not exist as a separate dimension, but as a byproduct of gravity.
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Please correct me, if I'm wrong on something.
Don't confuse this with the simulated universe theory, as I initially did. That's a whole nother story.
Time is believed to not exist as a separate dimension, but as a byproduct of gravity.
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Please correct me, if I'm wrong on something.
"Time is believed to not exist as a separate dimension, but as a byproduct of gravity."
I love this comment because I hadn't heard ^^ perspective before. Do you know what particular schools / models treat time this way, or are you inferring that this is the general conclusion of the field?
I love this comment because I hadn't heard ^^ perspective before. Do you know what particular schools / models treat time this way, or are you inferring that this is the general conclusion of the field?
No, that is not what's believed in general, but gains in attractivity as a possible solution. That's because, it's simpler. I have read about it on various blogs and have also seen an inspiring TED talk about it, before it got removed.
Here's a similar video: The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time by Sean Carroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_QMnG232Js
Here's a similar video: The Origin of the Universe and the Arrow of Time by Sean Carroll: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_QMnG232Js
i think its quite well established that space and time break down as approximations at the small scale.
i also think that gravity is interesting because in GR there really isn't such a thing - its an artefact of the geometry of space and time - because of how we perceive the passing of time.
i'm not sure exactly how time would fall out of gravity... afaik the quantum mechanical descriptions usually break the magic trick of GR and make it into a graviton field, which depends on some background time.
i do wonder why we pursue theories which our existing theories show to be unlikely to be fundamental... thinking about the limits, near the planck scale we find that it is impossible to tell if an event is before or after, or if a thing is one or two things, or if its seperated in x or y... the simple conclusion imo is that space and time are approximations that are useful at everyday scales, but have no physical reality.
i also think that gravity is interesting because in GR there really isn't such a thing - its an artefact of the geometry of space and time - because of how we perceive the passing of time.
i'm not sure exactly how time would fall out of gravity... afaik the quantum mechanical descriptions usually break the magic trick of GR and make it into a graviton field, which depends on some background time.
i do wonder why we pursue theories which our existing theories show to be unlikely to be fundamental... thinking about the limits, near the planck scale we find that it is impossible to tell if an event is before or after, or if a thing is one or two things, or if its seperated in x or y... the simple conclusion imo is that space and time are approximations that are useful at everyday scales, but have no physical reality.
Please watch this 15min TEDx Video by Sean Caroll:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y350oOiunf4
> we live in the two-dimensional space, which contains just enough information
I would change "just enough information" to "much more than enough". If it was just enough, then the universe would be an enormous black hole. Note that I'm not an expert, and I could be wrong, but this is my interpretation.
I would change "just enough information" to "much more than enough". If it was just enough, then the universe would be an enormous black hole. Note that I'm not an expert, and I could be wrong, but this is my interpretation.
Thinking about the universe as a massive black hole, whereas black holes are a concept that is still not entirely known makes thinking about this subject highly speculative. This list only adds salt to that wound: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_problems_in_ph...
But to me Black Holes are spinning L-Systems which distribute information in the universe instantly by quantum teleportation. This is much simpler than other existing theories which leave open question like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Open_questions
Take this information with caution, but these paper supports such possibility:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0310003
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.1715
http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/25/7/075011
But to me Black Holes are spinning L-Systems which distribute information in the universe instantly by quantum teleportation. This is much simpler than other existing theories which leave open question like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#Open_questions
Take this information with caution, but these paper supports such possibility:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0310003
http://arxiv.org/abs/0910.1715
http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/25/7/075011
It simultaneously explains why Quantum fluctuations [1] as described by Werner Heisenberg's famous "Uncertainty Principle" occur.
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation
Wasn't it the other way round? That black holes have maximum entropy, not minimal entropy?
Short version: The bulk is encoded in the boundary.
Imagine a special circle. The border of this circle contains all the information of everything inside the circle, so the inside of the circle is a "holographic projection" of the information in the boundary.
Imagine a special circle. The border of this circle contains all the information of everything inside the circle, so the inside of the circle is a "holographic projection" of the information in the boundary.
In the same way that a holographic projection is physically two-dimensional, but contains enough data to appear three-dimensional from many different angles? (I'm guessing here, I don't really get holograms.)
A regular photograph captures the intensity pattern of light at a particular location at a particular time.
Holograms recreate the interference pattern of light in a volume of space. By interfering two coherent sources using a film that has the interference pattern captured, you recreate the interference pattern. Hence it exists in 3-D.
Holograms recreate the interference pattern of light in a volume of space. By interfering two coherent sources using a film that has the interference pattern captured, you recreate the interference pattern. Hence it exists in 3-D.
Thank you for that description, now I understand it at least on a basic conceptual level.
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When reading that article, while I don't have the background for all of it, I find that most of it sounds fairly plausible, until I get to this: "In 1995, Susskind, along with collaborators Tom Banks, Willy Fischler, and Stephen Shenker, presented a formulation of the new M-theory using a holographic description in terms of charged point black holes, the D0 branes of type IIA string theory. The Matrix theory they proposed was first suggested as a description of two branes in 11-dimensional supergravity by Bernard de Wit, Jens Hoppe, and Hermann Nicolai" at which point I start to suspect that this is all just made up technobabble.
"In a larger sense, the theory suggests that the entire universe can be seen as a two-dimensional information structure "painted" on the cosmological horizon"
True for an anti de Sitter space (thus ADS/CFT) but not for the one we live in which is a de Sitter space and lacks the requisite boundry. I wish someone could explain the relevance of ADS/CFT to this universe.
I once had the opportunity of being in a car alone with Juan Maldacena for an hour and asked him. He pretty much shrugged (probably meaning any attempt to explain that to me, a layman physics junkie, would be futile.) He's a really, really nice and personable guy so I'm sure that if there was anything I could have understood he would have tried.
True for an anti de Sitter space (thus ADS/CFT) but not for the one we live in which is a de Sitter space and lacks the requisite boundry. I wish someone could explain the relevance of ADS/CFT to this universe.
I once had the opportunity of being in a car alone with Juan Maldacena for an hour and asked him. He pretty much shrugged (probably meaning any attempt to explain that to me, a layman physics junkie, would be futile.) He's a really, really nice and personable guy so I'm sure that if there was anything I could have understood he would have tried.
Think of it this way de Sitter space is essentially analogous to living on a sphere. In that space any triangle on the sphere's surface has more than 180 degrees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_geometry
Anti de Sitter space is essentially living on a boundary of a black holes like curvature. Like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HyperboloidOfOneSheet.png
In hyperbolic space any triangle on the hyperbolic surface has less than 180 degrees.
A sphere has no boundary (think invisible walls in video games). You can move over it for infinite time without encountering an invisible wall that says, you can't go further. Because it closes on itself. Contrast this with hyperbolic space, which must has such boundary, because it can't close on itself without becoming some other kind of space.
Note: it's an analogy, don't be too nitpicky.
Anti de Sitter space is essentially living on a boundary of a black holes like curvature. Like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HyperboloidOfOneSheet.png
In hyperbolic space any triangle on the hyperbolic surface has less than 180 degrees.
A sphere has no boundary (think invisible walls in video games). You can move over it for infinite time without encountering an invisible wall that says, you can't go further. Because it closes on itself. Contrast this with hyperbolic space, which must has such boundary, because it can't close on itself without becoming some other kind of space.
Note: it's an analogy, don't be too nitpicky.
Is it similar to Stokes Theorem? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stokes%27_theorem
1) The gist is this: Hologram is a 2D picture that encodes a 3D object using light interference.
Holographic principle states that information encodes reality into matter/energy and gravity. Basically gravity, matter and energy are sideffects of information. They are its projections.
How does this relate to hologram? Well dots that might appear like two separated dots on the 3D model, could be encoded on the 2D surface as very close. What this explains is "spooky action at a distance". We perceive two entangled electrons as being far away on a reality hologram, when in reality they are close on the fundamental 2D picture of the world.
Summary: What we perceive and measure as reality is not what reality fundamentally is.
NOTE: This is extremely layman termish and don't be too surprised if it's wrong. I last read UiaN years ago. There are also some other interesting properties, like that the any part of hologram contains whole picture of hologram but of lousier quality, etc.
2) I think Universe in a Nutshell covers most of this theory pretty well.
Holographic principle states that information encodes reality into matter/energy and gravity. Basically gravity, matter and energy are sideffects of information. They are its projections.
How does this relate to hologram? Well dots that might appear like two separated dots on the 3D model, could be encoded on the 2D surface as very close. What this explains is "spooky action at a distance". We perceive two entangled electrons as being far away on a reality hologram, when in reality they are close on the fundamental 2D picture of the world.
Summary: What we perceive and measure as reality is not what reality fundamentally is.
NOTE: This is extremely layman termish and don't be too surprised if it's wrong. I last read UiaN years ago. There are also some other interesting properties, like that the any part of hologram contains whole picture of hologram but of lousier quality, etc.
2) I think Universe in a Nutshell covers most of this theory pretty well.
So the Celestial Spheres[1] model used by Plato, Ptolemy, etc. wasn't entirely wrong? ;)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_spheres
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_spheres
In the same way Flatland was a real life story :)
> What this explains is "spooky action at a distance".
So what's the explanation for why almost all interactions that we perceive seem to not be spooky or at a distance?
So what's the explanation for why almost all interactions that we perceive seem to not be spooky or at a distance?
i thought every action was spooky and at a distance?
if you drop down to the smallest scales you can't tell if two things are in contact. i'm inclined to think that an infinitesemally continuous universe is an approximation we use to make the math 'easier' - in fact so are space and time - and even countability.
our best theories indicate that at small scales you can't actually tell if things are separated or not - or even if there are one or two - or even if events happen first or second.
thinking about a tiny 'almost a black hole' clock on the planck scale can reveal this very quickly with only the most basic of QM, SR and GR relations... below a certain tick rate it will collapse into a black hole and stop working, or the uncertainty effects will smear out the results so that you can't tell which tick comes first, or the error in the ticks exceeds the length of the ticks. in essense space and time are unmeasurable in the context of semi-classical QFT + GR theories
if you drop down to the smallest scales you can't tell if two things are in contact. i'm inclined to think that an infinitesemally continuous universe is an approximation we use to make the math 'easier' - in fact so are space and time - and even countability.
our best theories indicate that at small scales you can't actually tell if things are separated or not - or even if there are one or two - or even if events happen first or second.
thinking about a tiny 'almost a black hole' clock on the planck scale can reveal this very quickly with only the most basic of QM, SR and GR relations... below a certain tick rate it will collapse into a black hole and stop working, or the uncertainty effects will smear out the results so that you can't tell which tick comes first, or the error in the ticks exceeds the length of the ticks. in essense space and time are unmeasurable in the context of semi-classical QFT + GR theories
"Spooky action at a distance" implies some kind of faster-than-light phenomenon. Regular things that interact while separated by space aren't considered to have "spooky action at a distance."
The same reason you don't see each dot on your monitor as separate light source, unless you take a magnifying glass.
Or that you don't experience theory of relativity when accelerating.
Senses are imperfect and the information such as those aren't vital to our survival. And their effect is tiny, tiny, tiny. I'm pretty sure spooky action (iirc quantum tunneling) at a distance keeps our sun running, or at least computers.
Or that you don't experience theory of relativity when accelerating.
Senses are imperfect and the information such as those aren't vital to our survival. And their effect is tiny, tiny, tiny. I'm pretty sure spooky action (iirc quantum tunneling) at a distance keeps our sun running, or at least computers.
i think you're missing the point? the original question was making the argument, i think, that if the universe is fundamentally non-local, why is almost all physics local?
using an optical analogy: if fourier space is "the real thing", why do we live in a world where point sources are much more common, useful, and interesting, than diffraction patterns?
you seem to be saying in reply "because non-local stuff is difficult to observe". but that's not an explanation; that's the problem.
[although tbh i think you could make this argument against any unified theory - it's effectively the same as "why do we get quantum decoherence?" except that now the idea that it's caused by complexity seems less intuitively right]
using an optical analogy: if fourier space is "the real thing", why do we live in a world where point sources are much more common, useful, and interesting, than diffraction patterns?
you seem to be saying in reply "because non-local stuff is difficult to observe". but that's not an explanation; that's the problem.
[although tbh i think you could make this argument against any unified theory - it's effectively the same as "why do we get quantum decoherence?" except that now the idea that it's caused by complexity seems less intuitively right]
TL;DR. Theory of evolution meets anthropic principle
I think you are missing my point as well. Reality IS non-local, we just PERCEIVE it as local. No triangle on Earth surface has sum of angles 180, but we say - well it's close enough to 180 so lets say it's 180.
We perceive causality because it's an easier approximation than calculating probability distribution of each molecule. It's like a Russian doll, we perceive the outer doll as whole because we don't look close enough.
Because we don't need to. Evolution didn't specialize us to notice the subtle effect of quantum reality, when a good enough approximation allows us to survive and thrive. We perceive things we perceive, because of their importance for our survival. True nature of reality isn't important to our survival. Thus we don't perceive it.
Reality requires infinite amount of data to process. So we approximate it to stop being overwhelmed.
E.g. geocentric or heliocentric model of solar system are both equally valid. We just choose Heliocentric because its orbits are easier to calculate. Or earth is essentially flat even though it's a sphere etc.
I think you are missing my point as well. Reality IS non-local, we just PERCEIVE it as local. No triangle on Earth surface has sum of angles 180, but we say - well it's close enough to 180 so lets say it's 180.
We perceive causality because it's an easier approximation than calculating probability distribution of each molecule. It's like a Russian doll, we perceive the outer doll as whole because we don't look close enough.
Because we don't need to. Evolution didn't specialize us to notice the subtle effect of quantum reality, when a good enough approximation allows us to survive and thrive. We perceive things we perceive, because of their importance for our survival. True nature of reality isn't important to our survival. Thus we don't perceive it.
Reality requires infinite amount of data to process. So we approximate it to stop being overwhelmed.
E.g. geocentric or heliocentric model of solar system are both equally valid. We just choose Heliocentric because its orbits are easier to calculate. Or earth is essentially flat even though it's a sphere etc.
> We perceive causality because it's an easier approximation than calculating probability distribution of each molecule.
That's not true. Causality is the very mode of operation of the world and it is a requirement for anything to exist at all. Without causality there would be no change and no change means no existence.
Probabilistic models only indicate the degree to which the system is not understood by the observer before his/her confirmation of the system state.
That's not true. Causality is the very mode of operation of the world and it is a requirement for anything to exist at all. Without causality there would be no change and no change means no existence.
Probabilistic models only indicate the degree to which the system is not understood by the observer before his/her confirmation of the system state.
Ok, gonna be more specific, but I meant the classical notion of causality. Ball A hits ball B that hits ball C, where each effect occurred in respective chronological order that was given.
Quantuum theory proves that ball A can hit ball B that will travel back in time and hit ball C before ball B was hit. The causality isn't as narrow as in classical physics.
Also another thing to note - that all molecules in any matter move in random direction all the time, as so much their bounds allow them. It is not inconceivable that all molecules of a gold coin could simply move in the same direction and flip the coin by themselves. Chances of gold coins flipping on their own aren't impossible, just very very very very... improbable.
Quantuum theory proves that ball A can hit ball B that will travel back in time and hit ball C before ball B was hit. The causality isn't as narrow as in classical physics.
Also another thing to note - that all molecules in any matter move in random direction all the time, as so much their bounds allow them. It is not inconceivable that all molecules of a gold coin could simply move in the same direction and flip the coin by themselves. Chances of gold coins flipping on their own aren't impossible, just very very very very... improbable.
Sean Carroll talks a bit about this kind of problem here, (albeit when discussing the distinction between "coordinate space" and "momentum space") where we perceive the world in one way, but a lot of physics seems gears towards either one of the worldviews, and the question then is "why the hell?"
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/11/10/against-...
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2010/11/10/against-...
that's a good point - this is a more general issue than qm. ugh. slideshare is awful [oh; advice to expand to fullscreen makes all the difference. good slides; wish i understood more]
Well, a universe with constants that make non-local/relativistic effects common doesn't seem like it would be very good at hosting intelligent observers.
>why is almost all physics local?
Do we know that it is? Clearly we are experiencing major observation bias.
Do we know that it is? Clearly we are experiencing major observation bias.
That explanation would be hidden in the formulations that describe the 10 dimensions they found.
Even though shadows in usually are short and sort of shaped like we are, though a 2d projection on the ground. When the 3d objects are in weird relations to each other the shadows can be large and deformed (spooky).
Even though shadows in usually are short and sort of shaped like we are, though a 2d projection on the ground. When the 3d objects are in weird relations to each other the shadows can be large and deformed (spooky).
Hmm.. does that mean that E=mc² is only correct for our dimension? Because, if you say that matter is a side-effect and not something like "higgs particle", then this doesn't hold up anymore. I mean not everything we don't know must exist as a particle.
I mean I believed the holographic universe theory a long time ago already, but taking it really serious, like considering it's implications to all existing findings and formulas is ripping apart my whole worldview (into a flat shape, with a lot of meta-data).
I mean I believed the holographic universe theory a long time ago already, but taking it really serious, like considering it's implications to all existing findings and formulas is ripping apart my whole worldview (into a flat shape, with a lot of meta-data).
Dimension as in - three spatial dimensions we navigate every day. There is no other reality, ergo there is no our dimension.
Don't take it too literally, it's like saying information gives rise or causes energy, as in - information of the holographic universe causes energy to behave in the world we experience, probably with some other descriptions how it behaves in spaces where lower or higher dimensions are flatter than our own.
Don't take it too literally, it's like saying information gives rise or causes energy, as in - information of the holographic universe causes energy to behave in the world we experience, probably with some other descriptions how it behaves in spaces where lower or higher dimensions are flatter than our own.
Yeah, this is trouble, because the common understanding of "hologram" is very different from the actual definition.
As far as I understand it (and another person has explained it better below), the indication is that the way we perceive the universe indicates that the "data" producing those perceptions is not stored in the same structures we see or detect - instead, those structures (space, mass) are sort of "implied" by a more fundamental way of "storing" that data, which we interpret secondhand because we can't perceive the original. Not sure if this is clear or accurate, but that's what I've taken away from previous articles on a holographic universe.
As far as I understand it (and another person has explained it better below), the indication is that the way we perceive the universe indicates that the "data" producing those perceptions is not stored in the same structures we see or detect - instead, those structures (space, mass) are sort of "implied" by a more fundamental way of "storing" that data, which we interpret secondhand because we can't perceive the original. Not sure if this is clear or accurate, but that's what I've taken away from previous articles on a holographic universe.
What's interesting is that your description would also be appropriate for a computer model, or simulation.
Even if it's not completely technically accurate, I think your explanation makes the most intuitive sense to me out of all the responses I read.
So basically, Plato was correct. (Sort of.)
If I get this right, then the irony here is, that everybody is correct and wrong at the same time. Just draw some dots, circles etc. on paper and it could be that one day that non-local representation of the holographic universe holds true.
From a few long Youtube videos I just watched, the amount of information in the Universe is limited and based on the total surface area, not the volume.
This is true. Maximum entropy increases with the surface area of a space, not its volume. This is well explained by the holographic principle.
Surface area implies a boundary and something outside the boundary.
Isn't the universe infinite? Where does this leave entropy?
Isn't the universe infinite? Where does this leave entropy?
This boundary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_horizon
Others can hopefully chime in with more, but when I first was learning about it, my reaction to the word "hologram" was the same as your (1). My understanding is that when they say "hologram", they're simply meaning an n dimensional object that's encoded in n-1 dimensional space.
If you're not familiar with the basics of the Holographic Principle, start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
It's been a while since I've watched these, but IIRC these are very good videos to start with:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIl3Hfh9tY
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHgi6E1ECgo
EDIT:
Key clippings from the wikipedia article-
"But Jacob Bekenstein noted that this leads to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If one throws a hot gas with entropy into a black hole, once it crosses the event horizon, the entropy would disappear. The random properties of the gas would no longer be seen once the black hole had absorbed the gas and settled down. The second law can only be salvaged if black holes are in fact random objects, with an enormous entropy whose increase is greater than the entropy carried by the gas.
Bekenstein argued that black holes are maximum entropy objects—that they have more entropy than anything else in the same volume. In a sphere of radius R, the entropy in a relativistic gas increases as the energy increases. The only limit is gravitational; when there is too much energy the gas collapses into a black hole. Bekenstein used this to put an upper bound on the entropy in a region of space, and the bound was proportional to the area of the region. He concluded that the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the __area__ of the event horizon."
(__'s mine)
If you're not familiar with the basics of the Holographic Principle, start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
It's been a while since I've watched these, but IIRC these are very good videos to start with:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIl3Hfh9tY
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHgi6E1ECgo
EDIT:
Key clippings from the wikipedia article-
"But Jacob Bekenstein noted that this leads to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics. If one throws a hot gas with entropy into a black hole, once it crosses the event horizon, the entropy would disappear. The random properties of the gas would no longer be seen once the black hole had absorbed the gas and settled down. The second law can only be salvaged if black holes are in fact random objects, with an enormous entropy whose increase is greater than the entropy carried by the gas.
Bekenstein argued that black holes are maximum entropy objects—that they have more entropy than anything else in the same volume. In a sphere of radius R, the entropy in a relativistic gas increases as the energy increases. The only limit is gravitational; when there is too much energy the gas collapses into a black hole. Bekenstein used this to put an upper bound on the entropy in a region of space, and the bound was proportional to the area of the region. He concluded that the black hole entropy is directly proportional to the __area__ of the event horizon."
(__'s mine)
>>My understanding is that when they say "hologram", they're simply meaning an n dimensional object that's encoded in n-1 dimensional space.
If you apply that definition recursively. i.e, n in n - 1 , n - 1 in n - 2 and so on. You can ideally represent every thing in the very first dimension itself.
If you apply that definition recursively. i.e, n in n - 1 , n - 1 in n - 2 and so on. You can ideally represent every thing in the very first dimension itself.
Ah, but you already knew that - anything computable can be represented on a Turing machine's 1-dimensional tape.
Makes me wonder what it actually means to say a system is n-dimensional, if you can equally well "implement" it for any n.
Makes me wonder what it actually means to say a system is n-dimensional, if you can equally well "implement" it for any n.
>Bekenstein argued that black holes are maximum entropy objects
So would it follow that the equilibrium state of the universe is one gigantic black hole?
So would it follow that the equilibrium state of the universe is one gigantic black hole?
We are essentially sitting inside a giant black hole.
As our cosmos expands faster than speed of light, we can't ever escape this cosmos. Our light cone is similar to one that sits in a giant black hole.
As our cosmos expands faster than speed of light, we can't ever escape this cosmos. Our light cone is similar to one that sits in a giant black hole.
> we can't ever escape this cosmos
Unless we figure out how to emit ourselves as Hawking Radiation in the outer universe?
Unless we figure out how to emit ourselves as Hawking Radiation in the outer universe?
Unless we figure how to tunnel to the other side of the universe. Because quantum tunneling would allow us to move faster than light which is necessary to escape.
wow, this thread gets more and more interesting. I think the discovery of the holographic universe just broke all norms and worldviews of physics for the most of us.
Is there any issue here about fundamental stability? I'm struggling with how the universe can be at once expanding and some form of dimensionalized representation. Unless the other half of the relation is also in some sort of dynamic transition. Which might be true but suggest (perhaps as you do) there are things outside our perception that we can never perceive, not to mention measure or experience (ie travel too) because they are outside the space of our cognitive faculties. Or like you say, we are in a black hole and can't see out.
So the key takeaway from that, for me, is that this research does NOT prove that we live in a "simulation".
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It's impossible in principle to prove that we are or are not living in a simulation.
The simulation is always buggy. Don't you watch movies? ;)
A piece of hologram film doesn't look anything like the image, but it does have a certain distinct "look" to it. Much like the famous quote about not being able to define pr0n but I know it when I see it. Holograms have a certain "look" to them. It's what happens when you project a 3-D image onto a 2-D piece of film using all manner of weird wave interactions from a coherent source blah blah blah science talk blah.
So the terrible awful analogy is they're saying their simulation of a projection of some weirdness into normal space looks like our gravity and space and mom and apple pie.
The awful analogy being that the squigglies on holographic film are to the actual object, as their weird theory is to something vaguely like the space we live in, at least in some aspects. Take two things and there's a certain look to them and a certain transform in between and thats pretty much kinda whats going on in both cases.
This post exceeds the US recommended daily allowance of "kinda" "sorta" "mostly" so take it with a death star sized grain of salt. I'll laugh at anyone flaming me for not getting it exactly right cause this is simplified almost to not meaning much.
So the terrible awful analogy is they're saying their simulation of a projection of some weirdness into normal space looks like our gravity and space and mom and apple pie.
The awful analogy being that the squigglies on holographic film are to the actual object, as their weird theory is to something vaguely like the space we live in, at least in some aspects. Take two things and there's a certain look to them and a certain transform in between and thats pretty much kinda whats going on in both cases.
This post exceeds the US recommended daily allowance of "kinda" "sorta" "mostly" so take it with a death star sized grain of salt. I'll laugh at anyone flaming me for not getting it exactly right cause this is simplified almost to not meaning much.
There is nothing else I've ever seen like Feynman's QED, not for any field of physics. It's spectacular: a "popular" level book for a general audience that doesn't tell a single fib (even by omission), and that captures the essence of the subject without delving into the math required for serious calculations. I dream of writing a book like this (about string theory or anything else).
How to Mock a Mockingbird might come close in spirit for combinatorical logic.
I am not entirely sure either, what they mean by hologram. The problem is, that holographic principle ( or similar) can mean different things depending on the context. But in string theories, it is sometimes the case that lower dimensional theories can encode the same information as the full string theory. Just as illustration, if the endpoints of your strings are stuck on a two dimensional plane, but the strings can vibrate in three dimensions, then you can potentially describe the system as a theory of the endpoints in two dimensions ( and the vibration mode of the string would potentially be encoded as the type of particle), or you can describe how the strings move through three dimensions.
As for recommended reading, I liked Brian Green's The Elegant Universe.
As for recommended reading, I liked Brian Green's The Elegant Universe.
If you can accept some tiny bits of math, I'd suggest Susskind's lectures. As close to the real thing as it can get, and almost effortless on your part.
They took two different universe models, neither of which match the one we live in, and mathematically produced the same black holes. The key differentiators being that one universe has gravity and multiple dimensions while the other has no gravity and 1 single dimension.
While the article likes to take a logical leap and assume this supports the theory that our universe is a hologram, what was actually proved by this numerical experiment is eloquently explained in the article's quoting of theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind.
"They have numerically confirmed, perhaps for the first time, something we were fairly sure had to be true, but was still a conjecture — namely that the thermodynamics of certain black holes can be reproduced from a lower-dimensional universe"
- Leonard Susskind
While the article likes to take a logical leap and assume this supports the theory that our universe is a hologram, what was actually proved by this numerical experiment is eloquently explained in the article's quoting of theoretical physicist Leonard Susskind.
"They have numerically confirmed, perhaps for the first time, something we were fairly sure had to be true, but was still a conjecture — namely that the thermodynamics of certain black holes can be reproduced from a lower-dimensional universe"
- Leonard Susskind
When I see "experiment X backs up/supports/proves conclusion Y" in a headline I always mentally correct it to "experiment X does not definitively disprove conclusion Y" where X and Y are random variables operating on whatever the actual scientific experiment and conclusion respectively are.
In fairness, the way even the most firmly established scientific theories get firmly established is precisely by having a lot of experiments done that fail to disprove them.
(Disclaimer: That's a bit of a simplification. In practice the acceptance of a theory also has something to do with how explanatory the theory feels, how elegant it is, what prejudices the highest-status experts have, etc.)
(Disclaimer: That's a bit of a simplification. In practice the acceptance of a theory also has something to do with how explanatory the theory feels, how elegant it is, what prejudices the highest-status experts have, etc.)
I have lead loads of these physics theory of universe things and I am none the wiser about anything in the field. Might as well say "Physics have shown we are an electronc's imagination in 7.5D space like a windy coral on an orange Tuesday"
This is pretty much one of the Ultima Thules of Mathematics. Reading about it won't make you understand it, the metaphors used in popular science are just that: simple analogies that fool the reader. If you want to understand it I'd suggest allocating 6 years of your life to be thought the foundations and move on from there.
Edited to remove a shitty snark re fractional dimensions, hence the replies.
Edited to remove a shitty snark re fractional dimensions, hence the replies.
Fractional dimensions are a thing (for certain values of "dimension").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britai...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Long_Is_the_Coast_of_Britai...
See also this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_d...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fractals_by_Hausdorff_d...
So, the naive way I'm reading this might reduce to this lie-to-children analogy:
"You have a 2D layout of memory cells on a RAM chip (strings), which store the representation of a 3D universe. From within our 3D universe, we can tell that we're actually stored on a 2D medium by the way we see the effects of interactions between things in our 3D world that are distant in 3D, but stored on 'neighboring' memory-cells."
Anyone who knows enough about this to tell me how far off-base I am?
"You have a 2D layout of memory cells on a RAM chip (strings), which store the representation of a 3D universe. From within our 3D universe, we can tell that we're actually stored on a 2D medium by the way we see the effects of interactions between things in our 3D world that are distant in 3D, but stored on 'neighboring' memory-cells."
Anyone who knows enough about this to tell me how far off-base I am?
It's going to be a real downer when we find out the universe is actually one gigantic one-dimensional Turing machine.
Why? It'd prove Hard AI. That'd be nifty.
The universe already contains human-level intelligent agents. They're called humans.
But humans aren't necessarily Turing machines.
If we're all in a Turing machine, Q.E.D.
How so?, if a human isn't a Turing machine the you can learn him the rules and give him the instruction tape and he will perform the same as Tm.
Humans can certainly replicate TMs. It's uncertain whether a TM can replicate a human. If the Universe is a simulation running on a TM, then humans are replicable and therefore Hard AI is possible on a Von Neumann architecture, which would be an exciting discovery.
From the perspective of computing things, humans are Turing Machines, because a Turing Machine can compute anything that is computable.
That's like saying from the perspective of arithmetic we're abaci because we can both do sums. Again, whether or not human beings can model a TM is a boring and silly question. The interesting question, and one that remains not just unsolved but stubbornly resistant to progress towards a solution, is whether a TM can model a human. It's far from certain that conscious is computable, and it's getting further with each plate of spaghetti we throw at the teflon wall that is Hard AI.
It's still possible, technically, that humans are very high level simulations computed by a Turing machine.
Is physics a turing machine too? It bends, moves, burns,freezes etc. things according to it's instruction tape (laws)?
I would say laws( the ones we usually define in physics ) are consequence of physics and don't really exist.
So, do you say that physical laws in this space, may not hold in another space? That there is one or more variables, which control at which set-point our physical laws (the instruction tape) are begining and ending?
The physical laws here, like gravity or electromagnetism, may not make any sense in other potential universes or even other parts of this universe.
For example, the current model of the beginning of the universe, most of the rules of physics go out the window as everything we know as laws when evaluated end up with division by zero. It's infinite in size and infinite in density, something that we've got no way of understanding mathematically.
For example, the current model of the beginning of the universe, most of the rules of physics go out the window as everything we know as laws when evaluated end up with division by zero. It's infinite in size and infinite in density, something that we've got no way of understanding mathematically.
tbh. that doesn't satisfy me, because infinity isn't something that we cannot understand. Actually infinity is much easier to understand than the big bang theory. When there is one thing that nature has thought us from day 1 to now, it is that everything in nature is highly efficient. I feel the need to repeat that "Nature is highly efficient, in every aspect!"
So imagining that a maximum entropy universe will result in the quasi violation of the first law of thermodynamics is ridicule. See: [1] Energy will not cease to exist, yes, but I also think that the transformations of excited energy states won't stop.
As an example: "Where does the fire go, after you blow it out? The question is irritating, because fire is a side-effect of quantum interactions, while the wind that blew it off, absorbs and vaporizes this energy into measurable quanta and is comparable to what black holes do.
The rate at which vapors of flames excess from this reaction, is dependant of composition of the matter and it's catalyzation rate. The flame contains many atoms with electrons in highly excited states and keeps decaying into lower energy levels, causing the excess energy to swing in the frequencies/wavelengths or just colors/spectra of the burning material. You can learn more about that in [2].
Why this seemingly unrelated example of "fire and flames" is simply explained as an „autocatalytic set“ [3].
Adding that matter is both particle AND wave dependant on the observation is very simple to understand, when you know that we live in a two dimensional space and that energy outside of our space exists as a wave function.
--
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
[2] http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/qua...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocatalytic_set
As an example: "Where does the fire go, after you blow it out? The question is irritating, because fire is a side-effect of quantum interactions, while the wind that blew it off, absorbs and vaporizes this energy into measurable quanta and is comparable to what black holes do.
The rate at which vapors of flames excess from this reaction, is dependant of composition of the matter and it's catalyzation rate. The flame contains many atoms with electrons in highly excited states and keeps decaying into lower energy levels, causing the excess energy to swing in the frequencies/wavelengths or just colors/spectra of the burning material. You can learn more about that in [2].
Why this seemingly unrelated example of "fire and flames" is simply explained as an „autocatalytic set“ [3].
Adding that matter is both particle AND wave dependant on the observation is very simple to understand, when you know that we live in a two dimensional space and that energy outside of our space exists as a wave function.
--
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip
[2] http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/qua...
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocatalytic_set
The question, then, is: what the bloody hell are we?
Actually it would get very interesting. Stuff life after death, god, paradise, hell all become possible. Pain/Joy is possible too.
The fact that some one might be simulating infinite life in hell or heaven based on performance before an event of death is a scary concept.
The fact that its a simulation is one thing. But the Pain/Joy you will experience is pretty real.
The fact that some one might be simulating infinite life in hell or heaven based on performance before an event of death is a scary concept.
The fact that its a simulation is one thing. But the Pain/Joy you will experience is pretty real.
2D cellular automata. Wolfram!
I have found this Leonard Susskind lecture to come closest to answering the question of "why would anyone even suggest such a thing?" about this subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIl3Hfh9tY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DIl3Hfh9tY
That's an excellent lecture, and explains a lot of these things in understandable terms. Thanks.
So basically they are saying we are a 3D projection (extrapolation) of a 2D source?
Can we do anything useful with that like FTL space folding?
Can we do anything useful with that like FTL space folding?
Basically, but the numbers are higher than 2 and 3. String theory represents the universe (the projection) as 10-dimensional, for instance.
Yes, but this theory is simpler compared to the 10+ dimensions of string theory and m-theory.
Of course this isn't helpful to the layman who thinks of holograms as things they get on a card in a cereal box.
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But not in the Matrix sense, as I was lead to believe from the title.
I had the same reaction.
So they did some calculations on a black hole with and without gravity and their calculations match and now the entire universe is a hologram?
So they did some calculations on a black hole with and without gravity and their calculations match and now the entire universe is a hologram?
"Hologram" in the sense of "it looks like it has a different number of dimensions than it does", not in the sense of "rendering of something that isn't real".
It's a hologram in the sense that its max information density is based on the surface area of the observable universe, not its volume.
I don't see explained anywhere what causes them to make the leap that, because the math of holographic theory works, the universe 'is' a hologram. Doesn't it just mean that they've found a way to convert between two abstractions?
Well the important thing is that they found a way to abstract it with less dimensions than they previously did. This means that the previous theory had unnecessary redundancy, so the new theory has less cruft.
The hologram is their way of describing how they changed their way of thinking to land on this new theory. So they looked at the problem with the idea that the interactions in our universe could be a projection of the interactions in some other universe.
The breakthrough is that they found such a universe ours could be a projection of, and that universe can be described with less parameters than the previous leading theory.
The smaller a theory is, the more clear its foundational relationships will be, so the closer we are to actually understanding why things are like they are.
So previously we had a big question, why does our theory of everything require 18 (or more?) dimensions to describe the universe?
And now we have a slightly smaller question: Why does our theory of everything require 10 dimensions to describe the universe?
The hologram is their way of describing how they changed their way of thinking to land on this new theory. So they looked at the problem with the idea that the interactions in our universe could be a projection of the interactions in some other universe.
The breakthrough is that they found such a universe ours could be a projection of, and that universe can be described with less parameters than the previous leading theory.
The smaller a theory is, the more clear its foundational relationships will be, so the closer we are to actually understanding why things are like they are.
So previously we had a big question, why does our theory of everything require 18 (or more?) dimensions to describe the universe?
And now we have a slightly smaller question: Why does our theory of everything require 10 dimensions to describe the universe?
Wait, I don't understand.
So there's the "flatland" where strings "live" and interact without gravity, and when these strings interact in this flatland the side-effects of those interactions are the 10-dimensional space we observe?
So there's the "flatland" where strings "live" and interact without gravity, and when these strings interact in this flatland the side-effects of those interactions are the 10-dimensional space we observe?
Really a better title for this article would be "Simulation backs up theory that universe is a simulation".
I find them very curious, the "TheUniverseIsAComputer" people.
Suppose there is an experiment proving that the Universe is indeed a particle simulation whose discoverable elements are being actuated by unspecified interactions of presumably very different elements in some other, underlying "universe", say a substrate of Rule 110, and consciousness can be marked out as a computable pattern in such, and that the simulation process works well enough for a group of researchers (presumably "us") to feel as if "we" are really here. Okay great.
But for this to qualify as a simulation, surely the experiment (and the conscious experimenters) would have to be reproduced exactly, right down to the consciousnesses apprehending the results that establish scientific consensus that the UniverseIsAComputer, in precisely the consciousness-simulating way that these people fantasize about?
We are to understand that the scientists in the "real" universe presumably would not reach the same consensus, because theirs is the actually Real Universe, not the simulated one, and so the Reality Detection Experiment fails in some way.
So if this alleged difference appears---then why does the "simulation" even qualify as a simulation? For that matter, why does the author's own computer simulation qualify as having something to say about the real Universe?
I suppose the simulation is "good enough" for consciousness to be reproduced more or less exactly, except for just recently the aspect of scientists becoming conscious of the fact that TheUniverseIsASimulation.
I guess I could accept that everything is perfectly simulated except for... the evidence for the simulation?
Meh.
I find them very curious, the "TheUniverseIsAComputer" people.
Suppose there is an experiment proving that the Universe is indeed a particle simulation whose discoverable elements are being actuated by unspecified interactions of presumably very different elements in some other, underlying "universe", say a substrate of Rule 110, and consciousness can be marked out as a computable pattern in such, and that the simulation process works well enough for a group of researchers (presumably "us") to feel as if "we" are really here. Okay great.
But for this to qualify as a simulation, surely the experiment (and the conscious experimenters) would have to be reproduced exactly, right down to the consciousnesses apprehending the results that establish scientific consensus that the UniverseIsAComputer, in precisely the consciousness-simulating way that these people fantasize about?
We are to understand that the scientists in the "real" universe presumably would not reach the same consensus, because theirs is the actually Real Universe, not the simulated one, and so the Reality Detection Experiment fails in some way.
So if this alleged difference appears---then why does the "simulation" even qualify as a simulation? For that matter, why does the author's own computer simulation qualify as having something to say about the real Universe?
I suppose the simulation is "good enough" for consciousness to be reproduced more or less exactly, except for just recently the aspect of scientists becoming conscious of the fact that TheUniverseIsASimulation.
I guess I could accept that everything is perfectly simulated except for... the evidence for the simulation?
Meh.
I'm a huge Susskind fan. One of the coolest books I've read was his "The Black Hole War". And he's got tons of his lectures (full lectures from Stanford) on YouTube -- so if you're curious you can hear it straight from him.
Has this got anything to do with the fact that, given relativistic length contraction, from the pov of a photon the universe is two dimensional?
Something puzzles me about the hologram analogy.
A hologram seems totally garbled, and is "played" by projecting it in a particular way so that we see an image of the original object.
In contrast, our 4-d world doesn't seem garbled to us at all, and there is no way to "play" it and see an image of a higher dimensional world.
A hologram seems totally garbled, and is "played" by projecting it in a particular way so that we see an image of the original object.
In contrast, our 4-d world doesn't seem garbled to us at all, and there is no way to "play" it and see an image of a higher dimensional world.
Consider the Anthropic principle: observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it [1].
We don't think things are garbled because we have evolved to make 'sense' of the chaos. Perhaps everything is a garbled mess that we think we can understand.
“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.” ― Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
edit: I think I went off on a tangent. The answer to your original question is that our observable universe is the thing that is being played - it is the stuff on the boundary that might be garbled.
We are the projection.
We don't think things are garbled because we have evolved to make 'sense' of the chaos. Perhaps everything is a garbled mess that we think we can understand.
“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.” ― Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
edit: I think I went off on a tangent. The answer to your original question is that our observable universe is the thing that is being played - it is the stuff on the boundary that might be garbled.
We are the projection.
I think it's more that, it isn't a 4D world we live in, we live in a 2+ND world, and it can be mathematically simulated using ND physics, so that anyone in the 2+ND world is unable to percieve the ND information.
We can't "Play" our world because it's already being "Played".
We can't "Play" our world because it's already being "Played".
there are much simpler theories that unite gravity and quantum physics, without going into 'matrix-mode': http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205142218.ht...
So basically they are showing that a simple model exists that gives the same results as a more complex model? I mean the article seems clear that neither universes they modeled was actually the same as ours... so i dont get the significance.
If it turns out that the universe that we observe is just a projection from a lower dimensional space then this could radically alter the way in which we interact with that universe.
Things that seem to be coherent in our space (the things we observe - electrons, people, solar systems) may not look at all coherent in the source.
Similarly, coherent structures in the source may not be at all coherent in our space.
It might be that, by fiddling around with this theory, we could work out the mapping from the source to our space. If we could do this we could conceivably interact with this space in completely unimaginable ways.
Imagine superconducting levitation as perceived by someone from the stone age and then go up another few levels...
n.b. by 'our space' I mean the higher dimensional universe, the hologram. By 'the source' I mean the lower dimensional space that the hologram is projected from.
Things that seem to be coherent in our space (the things we observe - electrons, people, solar systems) may not look at all coherent in the source.
Similarly, coherent structures in the source may not be at all coherent in our space.
It might be that, by fiddling around with this theory, we could work out the mapping from the source to our space. If we could do this we could conceivably interact with this space in completely unimaginable ways.
Imagine superconducting levitation as perceived by someone from the stone age and then go up another few levels...
n.b. by 'our space' I mean the higher dimensional universe, the hologram. By 'the source' I mean the lower dimensional space that the hologram is projected from.
I swear I've read this somewhere else before..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle
Excitement builds as more of the article is read until near the end...
> Neither of the model universes explored by the Japanese team resembles our own, Maldacena notes.
...way to hide the disclaimer guys.
> Neither of the model universes explored by the Japanese team resembles our own, Maldacena notes.
...way to hide the disclaimer guys.
This sounds like it could have been an Onion headline, e.g.
"Simulations back up theory that Universe is a simulation"
I was confused till I read the comment by uncle Al, and that didn't help either. He's talking some science pidgin.
Hmm, now wasn't there a commentary article on HN earlier today about how papers in Nature (et al.) are sensationalized?
What would it even mean that the universe is a hologram? Wouldn't it imply some sort of holographic projector?
Strings are the projector. Except, uh, ...
Does it mean our dimension is projected to a higher dimension also? Wonder how this world would look like.
I wonder if I would age faster or slower in the universe rewritten in Go?
Your cells would age concurrently, depending on the value of GOMAXPROCS.
The garbage collector seemed like a great idea, until now.
Could we use these observations to increase storage density of data?
"In two papers posted on the arXiv repository"
aaand I'm out.
aaand I'm out.
"Breaking news: we live in the matrix!"
It means we are all Flatlanders.
I knew it!
..who (God) stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. - Psalms 104:2 (pre 537 B.C)
2) Anybody have any suggestions on a high-quality layman's explanation? I finished reading Feynman's QED the other week, and loved it, and was wondering what the closest might be for string theory.