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There Is Growing Evidence that Our

Universe Is a Giant Hologram

If this depiction of space is correct, then like any computer, there is an inherent limit to the
universe’s data storage and processing capacity.

By Maddie Stone

05 May 2015, 6:00pm

If a friend told you that we were all living in a giant hologram, you'd
probably tell him to lay off the kush. But incredibly, physicists across the
world are thinking the same thing: That what we perceive to be a three-
dimensional universe might just be the image of a two-dimensional one,
projected across a massive cosmic horizon.
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Yes, it sounds more than a little insane. The 3D nature of our world is as
fundamental to our sense of reality as the fact that time runs forward. And
yet some researchers believe that contradictions between Einstein's theory
of relativity and quantum mechanics might be reconciled if every three-
dimensional object we know and cherish is a projection of tiny, subatomic
bytes of information stored in a two-dimensional Flatland.

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"If this is true, it's a really important insight," Daniel Grumiller, a theoretical
physicist at the Vienna University of Technology, told me over the phone.
Grumiller, along with physicists Max Riegler, Arjun Bagchi and Rudranil
Basu, recently published the very first study offering evidence that the so-
called "holographic principle"—that certain 3D spaces can be
mathematically reduced to 2D projections—might describe our universe.
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[In our podcast, the Motherboard staff talks to Craig Hogan, the Fermilab
scientist who is actually performing these experiments.]

"If you asked anyone twenty years ago how many dimensions our world has,
most of us would answer 'three spatial dimensions plus time,'" he said. "The
holographic principle would mean that this is actually a matter of
perspective."

The holographic principle was first postulated over 20 years ago as a

possible solution to Stephen Hawking's famous "information paradox." (The
paradox is essentially that black holes appear to swallow information,
which, according to quantum theory, is impossible.) But while the principle
was never mathematically formalized for black holes, theoretical physicist
Juan Maldacena demonstrated several years later that holography did
indeed hold for a theoretical type of space called anti-de Sitter space.
Unlike the space in our universe, which is relatively flat on cosmic scales,
anti-de Sitter space as described by mathematicians curves inward like a
saddle.

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 For Palestinian artist, Ismai…

If this depiction of space is correct,

then like any computer, there is an
inherent limit to the universe's data
storage and processing capacity.

"Anti-de Sitter space is not directly relevant to our universe, but it allows us
to perform calculations that would otherwise be very difficult if not
impossible," Grumiller said.

Within this theoretical space, Maldacena showed that two sets of physical
equations mapped perfectly onto each other: The equations of gravitational
theory, and those of quantum field theory. This correspondence was totally
unexpected, because while gravity is described in three spatial dimensions,
quantum field theory requires only two. That the laws of physics produced
identical results two or three dimensions pointed to anti-de Sitter-space's
holographic nature.
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"This was the first instance where somebody explicitly showed how
holography works," Grumiller told me. "But given that our universe is not
anti-de Sitter space—it's approximately flat at large scales—it's interesting
to ask whether the holographic principle applies to flat space, as well."

To demonstrate that our universe can indeed be seen as a hologram,

physical quantities would have to be calculated using both quantum field
theory and gravitational theory in "flat" space, and the results would have to
match. Grumiller decided to see whether one key feature of quantum
mechanics—quantum entanglement—could be replicated using
gravitational theory.

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When two quantum particles are entangled, they cannot be described

individually, but instead form a single quantum "object," even if they're far
apart. There is a measure that describes how entangled a quantum system
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is, known as the "entropy of entanglement." After several years of work,
Grumiller and his colleagues managed to show that this entropy takes on
exactly the same value when calculated in gravitational theory and quantum
field theory for spaces like our universe.

"This calculation affirms our assumption that the holographic principle can
also be realized in flat spaces," said Riegler in a press release. "It is evidence
for the validity of this correspondence in our universe."

FERMILAB SCIENTIST AARON CHOU, LEFT, AND VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY GRADUATE STUDENT BRITTANY KAMAI
CHECK ON THE HOLOMETER DEVICE USED TO TEST WHETHER THE UNIVERSE IS A 2D HOLOGRAM. IMAGE:
FERMILAB

If the holographic principle does indeed describe our universe, it could help
resolve many inconsistencies between relativistic physics and quantum
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physics, including the black hole information paradox. It would also offer
researchers a way to solve some very tough quantum problems using
relatively simple gravitational equations. But before we can be sure that
we're living in the Matrix, there's still a lot of work to be done.

"We did this calculation using 3D gravitational theory and 2D quantum field
theory, but the universe actually has three spatial dimensions plus time,"
Grumiller said. "A next step is to generalize these considerations to include
one higher dimension. There are also many other quantities that should
correspond between gravitational theory and quantum field theory, and
examining these correspondences is ongoing work."

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Beyond the theoretical considerations, there's the entirely different matter

of pulling back the illusion and experimentally observing the holographic
nature of reality. As it happens, physicists at the Department of Energy's
Fermilab are now trying to do just that.
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As Motherboard reported last year, Fermilab Center for Particle
Astrophysics Director Craig Hogan recently hypothesized that our
macroscopic world is like a "four-dimensional video display" created from
pixel-like bits of subatomic information 10 trillion trillion times smaller than
atoms. To our macroscopic eyes, everything around us appears three-
dimensional. But just as moving your face toward the TV screen will cause
pixels to come into focus, if we stare deeply enough into matter on a
subatomic level, the bitmap of our holographic universe might reveal itself.

So. If this depiction of space is correct, then like any computer, there is an
inherent limit to the universe's data storage and processing capacity.
What's more, that limit should bear telltale signatures—so-called
"holographic noise"—that we can measure.

As Hogan explained to Motherboard's Jason Koebler, if we are indeed living

in a hologram, "the basic effect is that reality has a limited amount of
information, like a Netflix movie when Comcast is not giving you enough
bandwidth. So things are a little blurry and jittery. Nothing ever just stands
still, but is always moving a tiny bit."

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 Related: Nick Bostrom Says the Universe Is a Simulation, Twitter Bots
Suggest Otherwise

Reality's bandwidth fuzz, if you will, is exactly what Hogan's lab is now
trying to measure, using an instrument called the Holometer, which is
basically a really big and powerful laser pointer.

"We are specifically trying to determine if there is a limit to the precision

with which we can measure the relative positions of large objects,"
postdoctoral researcher Robert Lanza told me in an email. "This would
represent a fundamental limit in the actual information that the universe
stores."
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TOP-DOWN VIEW OF THE HOLOMETER, THE INSTRUMENT THAT WILL DETERMINE IF WE'RE LIVING IN A GIANT
HOLOGRAM. IMAGE: FERMILAB

The actual experiment that will decipher this involves measuring the
relative positions of large mirrors separated by 40 meters, using two
Michelson laser interferometers with a precision 1 billion times smaller than
an atom. If, as according to the holographic noise hypothesis, information
about the positions of the two mirrors is finite, then the researchers should
ultimately hit a limit in their ability to resolve their respective positions.

"What happens then?" Lanza said. "We expect to simply measure noise, as if
the positions of the optics were dancing around, not able to be pinned
down with more precision. So in the end, the experimental signature we are
looking for is an irreducible noise floor due to the universe not actually
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storing more information about the positions of the mirrors."

The team is currently collecting and analyzing data, and expects to have
their first results by the end of the year. Lanza told me they are encouraged
by the fact that their instruments have achieved by far the best sensitivity
ever to gravitational waves at high frequencies.

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"The physics of gravitational waves is unrelated to holographic noise,

however, the gravity wave results demonstrate that our instrument is
operating at top notch science quality, and we are now poised to
experimentally dig into the science of holographic noise," Lanza said.

So, it seems that for now, we'll have to wait for the physicists doing the
hard math and shooting the lasers to tell us whether our lives are just a very
sophisticated illusion. In the meanwhile, the big question on my mind is,
how the heck will such a revelation affect us?
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"This knowledge won't impact our everyday lives, in the same way that
knowing about the Big Bang or other galaxies does not change our everyday
lives," Grumiller said.

"But in the same way that knowing that the universe started with a Big Bang
has profoundly changed our view of the universe, knowing that the universe
is like a big hologram is a profound insight."

Lanza agrees. "It would force us to fundamentally alter our perception of

reality, in a way that many of us, myself included, would have a hard time
wrapping our heads around," he said.

Indeed, it sort of untethers the definition of "simulation" entirely. If we are

living in a giant hologram, can we really say that all the sim worlds and
MMOs we've built aren't as real as our universe's planets, star clusters and
galaxies, all of which boil down to quantum dots on a cosmic bitmap?

Perhaps the only thing we can say with any certainty is this: If our universe
is a simulation, it's probably as close to a perfect one as we can ever hope to
achieve. In that sense, living in the Matrix doesn't sound so bad, after all.

Perfect Worlds is a series on Motherboard about simulations, imitations, and

models. Follow along here.

Despite being perceived as an extreme optimist, Ray Kurzweil is the first to

admit that this technology could very quickly bring an end to the world as
we know it. Watch Motherboard's 2009 documentary The Singularity of Ray
Kurzweil.
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 TAGGED: PHYSICS,UNIVERSE,HOLOGRAMS,FERMILAB,MOTHERBOARD SHOW,QUANTUM PHYSICS,EXPLAINERS,
HOLOMETER,PERFECT WORLDS,UNIVERSE HOLOGRAM,HOLOGRAM THEORY,HOLOGRAPHIC PRINCIPLE,TECH,
MOTHERBOARD

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