A group of
physicists have delivered what has been defined by the journal Nature as the
“clearest evidence yet” that our universe nothing but just a hologram. 
The new
study could help settle one of modern physics’ most persistent problems: the
apparent contradictions between the different models of the universe as
described by quantum physics and Einstein’s theory of gravity.
The two new
scientific papers are the conclusion of years’ work led by Yoshifumi Hyakutake
of Ibaraki University in Japan, and deal with theoretical calculations of the
energies of black holes in different universes.
The
indication of the universe existing as a ‘hologram’ doesn’t refer to a
Matrix-like illusion, but the concept that the three dimensions we observe are
actually just “painted” onto the cosmological horizon, the border of the known
universe. If this sounds contradictory or paradoxical, try to imagine a
holographic picture that changes as you move it. Though the picture is two
dimensional, detecting it from different locations generates the illusion that
it is 3D.This model of the universe helps explain some variations between
general relativity (Einstein’s theory) and quantum physics. While Einstein’s
work reinforces much of modern physics, at certain limits (for example in the
middle of a black hole) the principles he drawn break down and the laws of
quantum physics take over.
The
traditional method of integration these two models has come from the 1997 work
of theoretical physicist Juan Maldacena, whose ideas constructed upon string
theory. This is one of the most well appreciated ‘theories of everything’
(Stephen Hawking is a fan) and it suggests that one-dimensional vibrating
objects known as ‘strings’ are the basic particles of the universe. Maldacena has greeted the new study by
Hyakutake and his team, telling the journal Nature that the results are “an
interesting way to test many ideas in quantum gravity and string theory.”
Leonard
Susskind, a theoretical physicist considered as one of the fathers of string
theory, added that the study by the Japanese team “numerically confirmed, perhaps
for the first time, something we were fairly sure had to be true, but was still
a conjecture.”
For more
info on this research, click here to read the original announcement.