Theoretical physicists at the University of Southampton believe they have uncovered evidence the universe is in fact a giant holographic illusion – and one of the researchers on the project has told Sputnik the findings will alter the way scientists think about the universe forevermore.
In essence, the holographic universe theory means that while humans perceive reality as three dimensional, it is in fact a mere projection on a two dimensional surface — effectively an illusion.
If that’s a tad mindboggling, Professor Kostas Skenderis, one of the researchers on the project, generously simplified the concept.
“A good analogy might be watching a 3D movie at the cinema — onscreen images may have height, width and depth, but they’re just projections on a flat 2D screen. In our 3D universe, however, we can touch and feel objects — the ‘projection’ is ‘real’ from our perspective,” Professor Skenderis told Sputnik.
Many might find the concept peculiar, but theories suggesting the universe is an illusion or hologram are nothing new. Professor Skenderis explains these ideas were first promulgated in the late 1990s, as scientists attempted to reconcile the conflicting notions of general relativity and quantum mechanics.
“During the last century, there were two key pillars of scientific understanding — general relativity and quantum mechanics. The former describes universe well, the latter describes cosmos well, but it’s difficult to combine the two. Hence, the holy grail for physicists for decades was a theory which combines both. The holographic principle goes some way to rectifying this disparity — it was formulated by scientists, most notably Juan Maldacena, who studied the physics of black holes,” Professor Skenderis adds.
The difference is, the new study contains the first evidence — Skenderis is very specific that the findings are not “proof” — that this thesis is correct. This substantiation was identified by developing models of the holographic universe that could be tested by peering back in time as far as 13 billion years ago, the furthest reaches of the observable Universe. …