Well, it's official folks, we don't actually exist...

Holographic universe may herald new era in fundamental physics | Science Blog

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94

After reading the article, I have no clue what the hell it's talking about. Can any of the nerds here explain what holographic noise is? Or maybe someone who's just more motivated look it up?

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It deals with proving the holographic principle, a branch of string theory.

Holographic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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He's come to save the day!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94

I knew it all along!

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The way holograms work is light waves overlap. Where the two waves overlap constructively (hills on hills and troughs on troughs) you see something. Where the two waves overlap destructively (Hills on troughs) you see nothing.

All matter in the universe is actually a wave. Electrons and atoms and even molecules and therefore ourselves are actually waves (electron microscopes only work because electrons are waves). In the case of ourselves, our wavelength is so short we never observe ourselves diffracting (unless we get really drunk).

One unresolved question is whether the universe is continuous or grainy on the planck scale. If in fact space is grainy on the planck scale then its possible that all the matter in the universe, which is all waves, would have its "peak" and "trough" at a particular planck point (at least any specific piece of matter would have its peak at a specific planck point). But what if the point the "peak" occurs jumps around slightly so that at one instant its on one planck location, but at the next instant the peak is actually at a nearby planck location? Those two waves representing the same object wouldn't then quite give 100% constructive interference, they would only give 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 % constructive interference. That's what I would refer to as holographic noise (based upon what the article discusses).

This is complete supposition on my part from knowing how holograms work, and from reading the article, especially the end paragraph.

Thank you. That made a lot more sense than the wikipedia entry.

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During the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every profession is chosen as a means to an end but continued as an end in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent act of stupidity.
-Friedrich Nietzsche, The Wanderer and his Shadow

All good socialists have villas in Southern France. That's not the point.
-Eurosocialist

Damn it, I thought this was a new conspiracy theory.

Anyways this isn't a new idea, its been tossed around for a while.

Relativity and Bending Light: Albert Einstein?s Most Famous Prediction of General Relativity | Suite101.com

Its all in Einstein's theory of relativity.

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I'm going to take a stab at this...

Your computer is made up of matter and energy. But without the information that makes it all work together, it remains as just a meaningless jumble of matter and energy. As per above, energy & matter are just incidentals, the key is the information that instructs all the matter and energy on how to organize itself. Without that information the universe is nothing, just like your computer would be nothing without the code.

errr... does that make any sense... it sort of suggests design??

Andrew

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Actually no. What you linked to is Einsteins theory, and how light can be bent by gravitation. That has nothing to do with planck-scale graininess or whether the universe is holographic in some manner.

Not to me....

Well, it either suggests design, or turns entropy on its head...

Doesn't speak to the nature of any such designer, but...

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVFdAJRVm94

The analogy between a computer hardware and computer software and the universe is horrible, imo. I'm assuming he's suggesting that the matter in the universe is the hardware and the physics laws of the universe are the software.

If so, the analogy is horrible because if I delete all of the software on a computer, the computer still sits there physically unchanged.

If I delete all of the laws of the universe, matter flies apart, atoms self destruct, etc. In other words the universe would be completely changed.

The physical laws of the universe aren't merely a convenient program. The laws of the universe are what makes the universe possible as we know it. They're intimately entangled unlike computer hardware and software.

I'm not committed to the analogy, im just trying to get a grasp on what the holographic principle means...

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

All the parts of a holographic universe are made of energy within self defining borders. The use of the term "holographic" is pretty generous.

From the wikipedia link on the string theory version of it, its some weirdness that the universe is really two-dimensional but because of phase constructive and destructive interference we actually perceive it as 3-dimensional.

This is what holograms do. The information for the hologram (typically) is stored on a 2-dimensional plate. When the plate is hit with lightwaves, the 2-dimensional information is perceived as being 3-dimensional. The main difference between a hologram and a photograph is that intensity, wavelength and phase information are all contained in a hologram and only intensity and wavelength are contained in a photograph. The phase information gives a hologram the appearance of being a 3-dimensional picture even though its not.

As to how the universe could be a hologram, some redefining would have to take place because holograms are phase information of something you can't touch (light), whereas actual matter is something you can touch. It probably still works as an analogy because physical matter all has a wavelength so is in some sense all waves just like light is.

I found the wikipedia article on string theory holography to be a bit baffling personally.