Our world may be a giant hologram

Third Eye Open

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Third Eye Open
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From this article at New Scientist:

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.
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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.
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I can almost wrap my brain around this, but one thing I am confused about is the Planck length. I had always understood the Planck length to be the smallest unit of distance that could ever be measured, due to the nature of light. But this article makes it sound as if the Planck length is the smallest unit of distance period. No half a Planck length, even if you can't measure it.

It's most likely that I am just not understanding the concept correctly, but it seems to me that if there is an actual, physical, smallest distance, that you would have to travel over that distance instantly, otherwise at some point you would have gone half of the 'shortest' distance.

Anyway, I thought this article was pretty neat! What you guys think?
 
The Plank length describes the "snap to" grid of the universe.

I don't know if this is true, but it sounded like a fun thing to say.
 
Sometimes I daydream about whether C is 2.99e8 *because* of the Plank length, or the Plank length is what it is *because* C is 2.99e8.

Hey, it beats working....



Dave
 
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.........................my brain hurts........................
 
This would be a candidate for a Theory of Everything, correct? Would this enable so-called "quantum randomness" to be predicted?

For this to work the universe would have to be Finite correct?
 
No one knows what happens below the Planck length. What is known is that it is the only quantity with dimensions of length you can get out of the known constants of nature, and that if you extrapolate the force of gravity down to that length, it becomesvery strong and very quantum. Since Einstein taught us that gravity is geometry, it's probable that lengths shorter than that don't make sense.

As an analogy - how long is the coast of England? Imagine trying to measure it with greater and greater precision, using shorter and shorter rulers. The idea of that length makes less and less sense as you go, and by the time you get to the molecular level it makes very little sense at all. Space maybe like that below the Planck length.
 
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.
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I'm tired. OK, computer -- Freeze program!
 
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The debate about the Plank Length is never boring because it's almost impossible to sit on the fence.
:boxedin:
 
I'm also wondering how does this mesh with relativistic effects and time progression?
 
Does anybody have any answers to my questions?
 
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INRM said:
Does anybody have any answers to my questions?
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The problem is that no one understands what you're asking.

If you're asking how the existence of a fundamental length or energy coincides with Lorentz invariance, the answer is "in a Lorentz invariant way". In other words to probe physics at the Planck energy, one needs a Lorentz invariant quantity with dimensions of energy (like the center of mass energy of a collision) to be of that size or larger.
 
INRM said:
I'm also wondering how does this mesh with relativistic effects and time progression?
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Show off. ;)


This is going to have to wait until I have time for serious Universe contemplating. I sooo want to understand this. I know I can. Surely a lay language explanation is out there somewhere.

It isn't Plancks I don't get. It isn't the technical language. It's conceptualizing the structure. The balloon surface continuum I get. But that's 2D and it just doesn't cut it for me as a substitute for 3D continuum shape of the Universe if the Universe folds back on itself.

I understand how a black hole could evaporate. But how would it not have any information?

I get the gravity wave vs particle vs something else, and even tiny dimensions gravity might leak into that we can't see. But picturing the structure of more than 3 dimensions plus time eludes me.

THERE HAS TO BE STRUCTURE. IF THERE IS STRUCTURE, WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE A MODEL OF IT, not a substitute model like a 2D surface for a 3D surface.

I WANT PICTURES! I WANT A MODEL! :D
 
I thought the surface of a ball was considered 2D even though it's curved. Well if the universe was like a balloon along the inside then wouldn't that too be 2D?

I think there has to be care in elaborate simulations regarding the exact structure of the universe. (To avoid using too much computational capacity, avoiding the risk of simulating sentient beings on some of the planets in this universe -- it wouldn't be right for them, and wasting money and resources on projects that can be of more immediate concern).

More research performed using devices like GEO-600 will probably ultimately give us the answers that we seek.


INRM
 
The surface of a ball or balloon is 2D. But it is used as a model for the expanding 3 dimensions of the Universe. It doesn't quite cut it for my Universe contemplating.
 
skeptigirl said:
The surface of a ball or balloon is 2D. But it is used as a model for the expanding 3 dimensions of the Universe. It doesn't quite cut it for my Universe contemplating.
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Physics is a mathematical science. If you don't understand the math you can't truly understand the physics. But you can sometimes get an idea of it from analogies, and that's what the 2-sphere (that's the surface of a ball) is for - to help you gain some intuition about what a 3-sphere is.

As an example, on a 2-sphere if you draw a circle (a 1-sphere) around a point (the north pole, say) and then make the circle expand, after a while it reaches a maximum circumference (the equator). If you keep going it contracts down onto the antipodal point (the south pole) from the one you started at. Exactly the same goes from a 0-sphere (which is two points) on a 1-sphere.

Given that, it's pretty clear (and it's true) that on a 3-sphere, if you start with a 2-sphere centered on a point and expand it, after a while it reaches a maximum size, and if you keep going it contracts again onto a different point. Understand that fully and you've understood a lot of what there is to know about 3-spheres.
 
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