So goes one theory.
The theory of a Holographic Universe has floated around for sometime. But it’s never had any hard data to back it up–it was just an explanation that nicely tied up mathematical loose-ends about black holes and gravity on a chalk board.
However some evidence for the unreality of reality may have showed up last year. The GEO600 is an internationally-collaborative experiment based in Germany that is attempting to detect and measure theoretical gravitational waves–or minute ripples in the fabric space-time. However, the experiment just keeps running into low levels of “noise.” The GEO600 team still plans to continue searching through the noise to detect these theoretical gravitational waves.
But Craig Hogan, a particle astrophysicist with the US Government-sponsored high-energy physics research lab Fermilab thinks the GEO600 team found exactly what they were looking for. Hogan sees this barrier of noise as a blurring or pixelating effect from zooming in too far. He theorizes that this is exactly what one would expect to happen if the Universe were a two-dimensional hologram. And now he and his team want to prove it.
Hogan is overseeing a super-sensitive holometer being developed at Fermilab. The holomter is almost like a super precise clock that will be able to measure the inherent fuzziness of space-time, and may give a clue to it’s true form. Hogan and his team are building two devices to confirm each other’s work. They hope to start collecting data next year.