Hologram Universe

[Iason Ouabache]

None of this makes any sense to me but I thought I'd share it anyways.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true

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.

Susskind and 't Hooft's remarkable idea was motivated by ground-breaking work on black holes by Jacob Bekenstein of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and Stephen Hawking at the University of Cambridge. In the mid-1970s, Hawking showed that black holes are in fact not entirely "black" but instead slowly emit radiation, which causes them to evaporate and eventually disappear. This poses a puzzle, because Hawking radiation does not convey any information about the interior of a black hole. When the black hole has gone, all the information about the star that collapsed to form the black hole has vanished, which contradicts the widely affirmed principle that information cannot be destroyed. This is known as the black hole information paradox.

Bekenstein's work provided an important clue in resolving the paradox. He discovered that a black hole's entropy - which is synonymous with its information content - is proportional to the surface area of its event horizon. This is the theoretical surface that cloaks the black hole and marks the point of no return for infalling matter or light. Theorists have since shown that microscopic quantum ripples at the event horizon can encode the information inside the black hole, so there is no mysterious information loss as the black hole evaporates.

Crucially, this provides a deep physical insight: the 3D information about a precursor star can be completely encoded in the 2D horizon of the subsequent black hole - not unlike the 3D image of an object being encoded in a 2D hologram. Susskind and 't Hooft extended the insight to the universe as a whole on the basis that the cosmos has a horizon too - the boundary from beyond which light has not had time to reach us in the 13.7-billion-year lifespan of the universe. What's more, work by several string theorists, most notably Juan Maldacena at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, has confirmed that the idea is on the right track. He showed that the physics inside a hypothetical universe with five dimensions and shaped like a Pringle is the same as the physics taking place on the four-dimensional boundary.

According to Hogan, the holographic principle radically changes our picture of space-time. Theoretical physicists have long believed that quantum effects will cause space-time to convulse wildly on the tiniest scales. At this magnification, the fabric of space-time becomes grainy and is ultimately made of tiny units rather like pixels, but a hundred billion billion times smaller than a proton. This distance is known as the Planck length, a mere 10-35 metres. The Planck length is far beyond the reach of any conceivable experiment, so nobody dared dream that the graininess of space-time might be discernable.

That is, not until Hogan realised that the holographic principle changes everything. If space-time is a grainy hologram, then you can think of the universe as a sphere whose outer surface is papered in Planck length-sized squares, each containing one bit of information. The holographic principle says that the amount of information papering the outside must match the number of bits contained inside the volume of the universe.

[Telarus]

++If space-time is a grainy hologram, then you can think of the universe as a sphere whose outer surface is papered in Planck length-sized squares, each containing one bit of information. The holographic principle says that the amount of information papering the outside must match the number of bits contained inside the volume of the universe.++



Ok, the reason this is all screwy and confusing comes from one of the other properties of holograms (and natural holograms is one of the weird occult/fringe science areas that I need more material on, cause I don't have all the info I need to understand it), stems from what happens when we break them up.

Take our holographic sphere universe, in the example. The information encoded in the Plank²-bits on the surface correlates to the information encoded into the Plank³-bits within the volume.

And if you break it in half, somehow (this is always an 3rd Circuit Abstraction process, mind you, even if you follow that up with a physical cutting)... if you break it in half, and you name the Whole AB, then you would expect to have half A and half B in the new model.... but you don't, you have half(ab) and half(ab).. which are further abstractions of AB, but encoded with half the bits.

To use our globe as a further visualization technique (metaphor), if you cut our holographic-globe in half, we would not only have a South Pole and a North pole in EACH HALF, but we would have the Gravestone of St. Emperor Norton in each half..... each with half the resolution...somehow.


That's how physical printed holograms (like the ones on credit cards, and collectable super-hero cards of the 90s) work. You print one layer of film that includes all the information, and when you cut it (you have to cut it to scale to reduce noise), each card from the stock will have a _representation_ of the image of the original Wolverine, or logo, or whatever.


............Now apply that to the Universe. That is why when we abstract the Universe into these mental models, of Universe₁, Universe₂,Universe₃, Universe₄, Universe₅, Universe_etc... each abstraction includes the Uncertainty inherent in the fact that we can only Perceive _part_ of the internal Plank³-bits....


I am now breathing manually, because damn, that almost made my brain hurty.

http://www.hologramimage.cn/images/Holography_image.jpg

[Fuquad]

Some hologram out there is about to get a hologram of a barstool upside the hologram of their head.


Just saying.

[Cain]

The physics is beyond me, too.

[Dr. Paes]

I am now breathing manually, because damn, that almost made my brain hurty.

This.

[Triple Zero]

I seem to remember I came across this article before somewhere, dunno if it was on here though.

The main thing that I wonder about the theory is that they blatantly assume that one of these Planck-squares will contain exactly one bit of information. Why would the most fine grains of our universe be binary?
What they discovered and measured sounds to me like a resonance of a sort of Nyquist frequency of the universe, which tells us only something about the "sampling rate", which corresponds to the size of these Planck-squares. It tells us nothing about the bit-depth or levels of quantization, in signal theory those would determine the maximum signal-to-noise ratio, which I'm sure would be drowned out completely in thermal noise at a much higher level.
Still an interesting discovery, but to immediately assume they're made of bits (from "binary digits"), zeros and ones, is a littlebit too arbitrary for me.

shame on us,
doomed from the start
may god have mercy
on our dirty little hearts

shame on us,
for all we have done
and all we ever were,
just zeros and ones

[Igor]

As I understand it, a quantum (of anything) can contain any number of bits of information. Because the Planck scale is (probably) the limiting size of the smallest possible quantum, it must therefore contain only one bit. Since the universe is 3D, one Planck cube should contain one bit.

But the holography principle says it should be one Planck square. This comes from considering what happens to information when it falls into a black hole. There's more about it in this older New Scientist article:

http://www.weeklyscientist.com/ws/firsts/New%20Scientist042702.htm

If black holes obey the second law, they can 't just wipe out information. Where do they store it all? Well, black holes have something else that can never decrease - their surface area. Jacob Bekenstein, then at Princeton University, and Stephen Hawking of the University of Cambridge worked out that the surface area and the disorder in a black hole must be proportional. In information terms, there is roughly one bit per Planck area of the hole -that is, for each square that measures 10^-35 metres on a side.

But that's vastly less than one piece for every Planck volume. So when a volume of space is crumpled into a black hole, a huge chunk of information is seemingly wiped out of existence. Indeed, that's what Hawking maintains. But it means undermining quantum mechanics -a theory in which information is always preserved- and abandoning the link between disorder and information. Most theorists weren't sure what to make of this tension, but some would simply not hear of such a flouting of the laws.

In 1993, there came a radical explanation. Working independently, both Leonard Susskind at Stanford University, and Gerard 't Hooft at Utrecht University saw that information might be preserved if it "lives" in just two dimensions of space, as opposed to the obvious, common-sense choice of three.

Edit: More interesting stuff from that article: Locality is the idea that points in space are distinct from one another and forces have to travel between them. If the universe is a hologram, then everything gets squashed up against each other on the 2D boundary, so it gets harder to distinguish two separate points. Which kinda explains all the weird entanglement and other nonlocal aspects of quantum mechanics.

[Triple Zero]

As I understand it, a quantum (of anything) can contain any number of bits of information. Because the Planck scale is (probably) the limiting size of the smallest possible quantum, it must therefore contain only one bit. Since the universe is 3D, one Planck cube should contain one bit.

no.

why specifically a bit? why binary? why not ternary or quaternary, or continuous?

if you're looking for the most simple information representation, it should be unary. it's highly inefficient, but so would a planck cube be with only a 0 or 1 in it, compared to one that can be three-valued.

it just seems to me that this speculation on the fundamental representation of the universe to be binary, comes from some deeper association likening the "hologram universe" to some kind of virtual reality / Matrix story.

[Telarus]

I agree with [000] that the binary aspect described for these Plank^x-bits seems like an assumption, and worth further re-examination.

I'd also love it if at some point, a 'fundamental-level' discovery like this could have a simple and repeatable application on our-scale of things that even I could take advantage of.....

[Igor]

Hmm.. This is weird. Everything I've read on quantum information assumes that the bit (0 or 1) is the fundamental unit of information and then goes on to generalise that to qubits (which can be in a superposition: a|0>+b|1>).

Now that I'm looking for it, no one seems to be able to justify this...

[Iason Ouabache]

I agree with [000] that the binary aspect described for these Plank^x-bits seems like an assumption, and worth further re-examination.

I'd also love it if at some point, a 'fundamental-level' discovery like this could have a simple and repeatable application on our-scale of things that even I could take advantage of.....

Yeah, the thing about discoveries like this is that it usually takes decades before we can take advantage of them.  For instance, when J.J. Thomson discovered the electron it was assumed that nothing useful would ever come of it.  Now our entire economy is based on it.  I'm sure that they though the same thing about relativity and quantum mechanics. It's going to take someone extra imaginative to find a use for this one though.

[Triple Zero]

Hmm.. This is weird. Everything I've read on quantum information assumes that the bit (0 or 1) is the fundamental unit of information and then goes on to generalise that to qubits (which can be in a superposition: a|0>+b|1>).

Now that I'm looking for it, no one seems to be able to justify this...

qubits are from quantum computing. whole different thing. they can pick whatever number system they want, but i dunno if there's been done research on other systems than binary ones. if not it might make an interesting PhD

[Template]

I seem to remember I came across this article before somewhere, dunno if it was on here though.

The main thing that I wonder about the theory is that they blatantly assume that one of these Planck-squares will contain exactly one bit of information. Why would the most fine grains of our universe be binary?
What they discovered and measured sounds to me like a resonance of a sort of Nyquist frequency of the universe, which tells us only something about the "sampling rate", which corresponds to the size of these Planck-squares. It tells us nothing about the bit-depth or levels of quantization, in signal theory those would determine the maximum signal-to-noise ratio, which I'm sure would be drowned out completely in thermal noise at a much higher level.
Still an interesting discovery, but to immediately assume they're made of bits (from "binary digits"), zeros and ones, is a littlebit too arbitrary for me.

shame on us,
doomed from the start
may god have mercy
on our dirty little hearts

shame on us,
for all we have done
and all we ever were,
just zeros and ones

Good use of "Nyquist Frequency".  Whichever article I read said the space-time analogue of a Nyquist frequency could be smaller than predicted for 1-time,3-space.  What does a 1 even look like in practicable physics?  Mass?  Energy?  Which force?

[Sheered Völva]

I seem to remember I came across this article before somewhere, dunno if it was on here though.

The main thing that I wonder about the theory is that they blatantly assume that one of these Planck-squares will contain exactly one bit of information. Why would the most fine grains of our universe be binary?
What they discovered and measured sounds to me like a resonance of a sort of Nyquist frequency of the universe, which tells us only something about the "sampling rate", which corresponds to the size of these Planck-squares. It tells us nothing about the bit-depth or levels of quantization, in signal theory those would determine the maximum signal-to-noise ratio, which I'm sure would be drowned out completely in thermal noise at a much higher level.
Still an interesting discovery, but to immediately assume they're made of bits (from "binary digits"), zeros and ones, is a littlebit too arbitrary for me.

shame on us,
doomed from the start
may god have mercy
on our dirty little hearts

shame on us,
for all we have done
and all we ever were,
just zeros and ones

Good use of "Nyquist Frequency".  Whichever article I read said the space-time analogue of a Nyquist frequency could be smaller than predicted for 1-time,3-space.  What does a 1 even look like in practicable physics?  Mass?  Energy?  Which force?

This was your 50th Post.

PHUCK OFF YOU PHUCKING PHUCKTARD!

Hey, they did it to me on my 50th post.

Welcome! 

[Rumckle]

This was your 50th Post.

PHUCK OFF YOU PHUCKING PHUCKTARD!

Hey, they did it to me on my 50th post.

Welcome! 

You realise that he's been here longer than you anyway.