Our universe may well be a giant hologram.

[SpookyFrank]

This sounds like a load of new scientist bollocks to me, they come up with something like this every other week. The universe only exists because there's intelligent life to notice it existing; the universe really really long but only about four feet wide; causality actually runs backwards in time; the universe is an inside out lobster; there is a parallel universe somewhere where the new Coldplay album has tunes on it. All, in short, utter nonsense

And if the story here is that everything we can possibly observe is just one big fucking joke, then I'm sorry to say I've known that for years already.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

marrying quantum physics and relativity and gravity
ie THE BIG ONE

Yeah but that's not magic. I think Xes thinks when the secrets are unlocked we can transcend science and make science fiction a reality.

 

[fogbat]

If it turns out that Xes was right about everything, I will be so incredibly chuffed

 

[xes]

it's not me that's right,it's the ancient beliefs (that everything is made of light,they "knew" this thousands of years ago.) Science is catching up with ancient traditions,but it needed to happen. And soon,I do believe,it will all be factual. And whilst some of the theories linked in with the holographic model are wild and whacky,they at the very least become possible,and not so batshit crazy.

I just hope it is right,a unified theory,connecting everything,would be so cool.

 

[Badgers]

I have often considered subscribing to NS magazine.
Is it worth getting or is the website all I need?

 

[Crispy]

I think Scientific American is a slightly more solid read.

 

[xes]

hehe,nothing's solid anymore *walks through several walls to go and make a cuppa*

 

[ChrisFilter]

So hold on, we're holograms projected from our 2D selves? Where do our 2D selves reside? Why can we touch? How can things be solid? What are we projecting from and onto? How can we be damaged by and die from impact injuries if our physical self is just a hologram? Why can't I project a six-pack instead of a belly?

One big from me.

 

[kyser_soze]

Will be interesting to see how this develops over the next couple of years.

I'm surprised no-one's tried to say 'It's aylyunz communicatin wiv us'

 

[Brinxmat]

If I mention The Matrix, will a big screen flash the words up behind, like it does behind Alan Davies on QI?

Holographic universe? Unified Field Theory? Large Hadron Collider?

What happened to the kittehs, that's what I want to know...

 

[kyser_soze]

What happened to the kittehs, that's what I want to know...

Schrodinger put them all on boxes and gassed them...maybe...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

So hold on, we're holograms projected from our 2D selves? Where do our 2D selves reside? Why can we touch? How can things be solid? What are we projecting from and onto? How can we be damaged by and die from impact injuries if our physical self is just a hologram? Why can't I project a six-pack instead of a belly?

One big from me.

Heh I was thinking about this all the way on the train from Bristol last night. My head hurts! But it's a fascinating theory though, if true has serious implications for pretty much everything, religions will go nuts Atheists will have doubts...

 

[ChrisFilter]

Heh I was thinking about this all the way on the train from Bristol last night. My head hurts! But it's a fascinating theory though, if true has serious implications for pretty much everything, religions will go nuts Atheists will have doubts...

Yeah, but what the fuck does it even mean?

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Yeah, but what the fuck does it even mean?

I don't know, having trouble re-arranging my holographic neurons to make any sense of this!

 

[ChrisFilter]

Sounds like there's a good chance this isn't actually anything to do with what we think of as holograms, and is just trying to make a story sounds sexy for the public.

It may well be utterly ground breaking, but unless it's made cool for the public, no-one outside of science will listen.

 

[kyser_soze]

Someone's probably left their mobile charger on near this bit of tech...

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Sounds like there's a good chance this isn't actually anything to do with what we think of as holograms, and is just trying to make a story sounds sexy for the public.

It may well be utterly ground breaking, but unless it's made cool for the public, no-one outside of science will listen.

Heh yeah maybe...although going back to your point about touching stuff Red Dwarf had a great answer: hard light holograms.

 

[bouncer_the_dog]

RIMMER: May I remind you all of Space Core Directive 34124?

KRYTEN: 34124. "No officer with false teeth should attempt oral sex in zero gravity".

 

[DotCommunist]

insane

 

[xes]

insane

in the mother fucking holographic membrane

 

[xes]

So hold on, we're holograms projected from our 2D selves? Where do our 2D selves reside? Why can we touch? How can things be solid? What are we projecting from and onto? How can we be damaged by and die from impact injuries if our physical self is just a hologram? Why can't I project a six-pack instead of a belly?

One big from me.

right,let's remember that it's me who's answered this......(and not someone who knows alot about anything) But,as far as I can see (which,in 2D,isn't very far ) It's got something to do with consciousness making the reality around you. Your body is still your body,to our perspective,nothing like that is going to change. Also,the fields in play,gravity and the theoretical higgs bossom field,means you can touch stuff (even though you have never physically touched anything properly in your entire life,due to a little field which propels you against everything else,giving the illusion of touch. Again,I think. )

Somehwere in that post,could be the answer. But a-I haven't really got a grasp on the theory,cos it goes way deeper than I can imagine,and b-I'm a bit drunk. So I'm probbaly babbling again. But,it's what people expect of me

 

[Aldebaran]

Does not look so groundbreaking to me to argue that material (the article describes it as "information") that is supposed to evaporate is nevertheless surviving and since we are dealing with humans and human perception, they paint it within the boundaries thereof. Which is in my view a mistake but since all humans suffer from the same limited perception, it is difficult to correct this, because every correction will fall into the same limitations, inevitably.

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.

Looks very logical to me, I never bought the idea that what is called "time" is what it represents universaly.

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."

And that for me example of human limitation of picturing by failing perception to describe otherwise. Which doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong in principle.

It could also be a bird nesting on their telescope and his chicks trying their wings out .


salaam.

 

[DotCommunist]

the idea that consciousness is a certain waveform on the quantum foam is very poorly supported imo.

this hologram nonsense seems to be similarly supported by out-and-out dingbats and the occasional scientist talking of things outside of his field

 

[8ball]

the idea that consciousness is a certain waveform on the quantum foam is very poorly supported imo.

this hologram nonsense seems to be similarly supported by out-and-out dingbats and the occasional scientist talking of things outside of his field

This is true - scientists tend to talk a lot of nonsense once they wander outside their specialism, even if they are quite brilliant within it.

 

[Aldebaran]

I only read the first page of that article. Never got to "consiousness".
I think however that "time" is not what it appears to be. Never believed that.

salaam.

 

[camouflage]

I only read the first page of that article. Never got to "consiousness".
I think however that "time" is not what it appears to be. Never believed that.

salaam.

Time is exactly what it appears to be, a linearity of experience. But I get what you mean and agree.

 

[povmcdov]

I have often considered subscribing to NS magazine.
Is it worth getting or is the website all I need?

It's gone downhill in recent years, not that it was ever spectacular or anything. Theres very little in the way of in-depth reviews of a particular area of science, there are too many features about contraversial issues and stories like this about absurd cosmology that has zero bearing on anything.

If I was a cynic I might suggest that a lot of the content is designed to get national newspapers to pick up the story and pay NS a fee. Read the papers on a thursday/friday and you may as well not bother buying NS sometimes.

The drop in quality is exemplified by the fact that they have quoted from these very forums recently

If you have a strong scientific background and cost isnt too much of an issue then read Nature. It is a proper journal though so a lot of the papers wont mean anything to anyone outside the field they are aimed at. The news is in depth and there is usually a review article of a particular issue. Its very expensive though.

If you dont have a strong science background then Scientific American is excellent. Its less news focused but articles are written by scientists usually, not journos, and go into proper depth yet remain easy to understand. My one criticism would be that they sometimes have some daft pieces in there, such as one I read just after hurricane Katrina about using microwaves beamed from satellites to divert storm systems.

edit: who was it New Scientist quoted off here? Fridgemagnet?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Yeah, it was me, though there have been others.

Nah, I like NS, and not just because I was in it; it's a good "news science" magazine. You can criticise the focus of the content but it's not supposed to be terribly in-depth, and it's a million times better than what you get from the papers. It's not a proper scientific journal, clearly, but journals are mostly incomprehensible if you're not skilled in whatever their discipline is.

 

[laptop]

The drop in quality is exemplified by the fact that they have quoted from these very forums recently

But only in the silly bit at the back.

The next least reliable part of New Scientist, after the silly bit at the back, is Marcus Chown

I await the readers' letters pointing out his fundamental error with some interest.

The error I can see so far is that he's not bothered to deal with any other interpretation that could lead to graininess in space-time above the Planck scale. I'm sure a Loop Quantum Gravity bod will be along in a moment, and that John Baez will report it, and that eventually someone (not Chown) will understand and report what John's on about

 

[cybertect]

Think of the data storage possibilities?

Library of Congress in your wristwatch anyone?

or actual teleportation?