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Some physicists believe we're living in a giant hologram — and it's not that far-fetched
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Some physicists actually believe that the universe we live in might be a hologram.
The idea isn't that the universe is some sort of fake simulation out of The Matrix, but rather that even though we appear to live in a three-dimensional universe, it might only have two dimensions. It's called the holographic principle.
The thinking goes like this: Some distant two-dimensional surface contains all the data needed to fully describe our world — and much like in a hologram, this data is projected to appear in three dimensions. Like the characters on a TV screen, we live on a flat surface that happens to look like it has depth.
It might sound absurd. But when physicists assume it's true in their calculations, all sorts of big physics problems — such as the nature of black holes and the reconciling of gravity and quantum mechanics — become much simpler to solve. In short, the laws of physics seem to make more sense when written in two dimensions than in three.
"It's not considered some wild speculation among most theoretical physicists," says Leonard Susskind, the Stanford physicist who first formally defined the idea decades ago. "It's become a working, everyday tool to solve problems in physics."
But there's an important distinction to be made here. There's no direct evidence that our universe actually is a two-dimensional hologram. These calculations aren't the same as a mathematical proof. Rather, they're intriguing suggestions that our universe could be a hologram. And as of yet, not all physicists believe we have a good way of testing the idea experimentally.
Where did the idea that the universe might be a hologram come from?
The idea originally came out of a pair of paradoxes concerning black holes.
1) The black hole information loss problem
In 1974, Stephen Hawking famously discovered that black holes, contrary to what had long been thought, actually emit slight amounts of radiation over time. Eventually, as this energy bleeds away from the event horizon — the black hole's outer edge — the black hole should completely disappear.
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An illustration of radiation escaping from a black hole.
However, this idea prompted what's known as the black hole information loss problem. It's long been thought that physical information can't be destroyed: All particles either retain their original form or, if they change, that change impacts other particles, so the first set of particles' original state could be inferred at the end.
As an analogy, think of a stack of documents that are fed through a shredder. Even though they're cut into tiny pieces, the information present on the pieces of paper still exists. It's been cut into tiny pieces, but it hasn't disappeared, and given enough time, the documents could be reassembled so that you'd know what was written on them originally. In essence, the same thing was thought to be true with particles.
But there was a problem: If a black hole disappears, then the information present in any object that may have been sucked into it seemingly disappears, too.
One solution, proposed by Susskind and Dutch physicist Gerard 't Hooft in the mid-'90s, was that when an object gets pulled into a black hole, it leaves behind some sort of 2D imprint encoded on the event horizon. Later, when radiation leaves the black hole, it picks up the imprint of this data. In this way, the information isn't really destroyed.
And their calculations showed that on just the 2D surface of a black hole, you could store enough information to completely describe any seemingly 3D objects inside it.
"The analogy that both of us independently were thinking about was that of a hologram — a two-dimensional piece of film which can encode all the information in a three-dimensional region of space," Susskind says.
The entropy problem: There was also the related problem of calculating the amount of entropy in a black hole — that is, the amount of disorder and randomness among its particles. In the '70s, Jacob Bekenstein had calculated that their entropy is capped, and that the cap is proportional to the 2D area of a black hole's event horizon.
"For ordinary matter systems, the entropy is proportional to the volume, not the area," says Juan Maldacena, an Argentinian physicist involved in studying the holographic principle. Eventually, he and others saw that this, too, pointed to the idea that what looked like a 3D object — a black hole — might be best understood using only two dimensions.
How did this idea go from black holes to the entire universe?
None of this was proof that black holes were holograms. But early on, Susskind says, physicists recognized that looking at the entire universe as a two-dimensional object that only looks three-dimensional might help solve some deeper problems in theoretical physics. And the math works just as well whether you're talking about a black hole, a planet, or an entire universe.
In 1998, Maldacena demonstrated that a hypothetical universe could be a hologram. His particular hypothetical universe was in what's called anti-de Sitter space (which, to simplify things, has a curved shape over huge distances, as opposed to our universe, which is believed to be flat):
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Anti-de Sitter space (left) curves in on itself. Our universe (right) is believed to be flat.
What's more, by viewing this universe in two dimensions, he found a way to make the increasingly popular idea of string theory — a broad framework in which the basic building blocks of the universe are one-dimensional strings, rather than particles — jibe neatly with the well-established laws of particle physics.
And even more importantly, by doing so, he united two hugely important, disparate concepts in physics under one theoretical framework. "The holographic principle connected the theory of gravity to theories of particle physics," Maldacena says.
Combining these two fundamental ideas into a single coherent theory (often called quantum gravity) remains one of the holy grails of physics. So the holographic principle making it possible in this hypothetical universe was a big deal.
Of course, all of this is still quite different from saying that our actual universe — not this weird hypothetical one — is a hologram.
But could our universe actually be a hologram — or does the idea only apply to hypothetical ones?
That's still a matter of active debate. But there's been some recent theoretical work that suggests the holographic principle might work for our universe too — including a high-profile paper by Austrian and Indian physicists that came out this past May.
Like Maldacena, they also sought to use the principle to find a similarity between the disparate fields of quantum physics and gravitational theory. In our universe, these two theories typically don't align: They predict different results regarding the behavior of any given particle.
But in the new paper, the physicists calculated how these theories would predict the degree of entanglement — the bizarre quantum phenomenon in which the states of two tiny particles can become correlated so that a change to one particle can affect the other, even if they're far away. They found that by viewing one particular model of a flat universe as a hologram, they could indeed get the results of both theories to match up.
Still, even though this was a bit closer to our universe than the one Maldacena had worked with, it was just one particular type of flat space, and their calculations didn't take time into account — just the other three spatial dimensions. What's more, even if this did apply directly to our universe, it'd only show that it's possible it could be a hologram. It wouldn't be hard evidence.
How could we prove that the universe is a hologram?
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The best type of proof would start with some testable prediction made by holographic theory. Experimental physicists could then gather evidence to see if it matches the prediction. For instance, the theory of the Big Bang predicted that we might find some form of remnant energy emanating throughout the universe as a result of the violent expansion 13.8 billion years ago — and in the 1960s, astronomers found exactly that, in the form of the cosmic microwave background.
At the moment, there's no universally agreed-upon test that would provide firm evidence for the idea. Still, some physicists believe that the holographic principle predicts there's a limit to how much information spacetime can contain, because our seemingly 3D spacetime is encoded by limited amounts of 2D information. As Fermilab's Craig Hogan recently put it to Motherboard, "The basic effect is that reality has a limited amount of information, like a Netflix movie when Comcast is not giving you enough bandwidth. So things are a little blurry and jittery."
Hogan and others are using an instrument called a Holomoter to look for this sort of blurriness. It relies on powerful lasers to see whether — at super-small, submicroscopic levels — there's a fundamental limit in the amount of information present in spacetime itself. If there is, they say, it could be evidence that we're living in a hologram.
Still, other physicists, including Susskind, reject the premise of this experiment and say it can't provide any evidence for the holographic principle.
Let's say we prove the universe is a hologram. What would that mean for my everyday life?
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In one strict sense, it'd mean little. The same laws of physics you've been living with for your entire life would seem to remain exactly the same. Your house, dog, car, and body would keep appearing as three-dimensional objects, just like they always have.
But in a deeper sense, this discovery would revolutionize our existence on a profound level.
It doesn't matter much for your day-to-day life that the universe was formed 13.8 billion years in a sudden, violent expansion from a single point of matter. But the discovery of the Big Bang is instrumental for our current understanding of the history of the universe and our place within the cosmos.
Likewise, the bizarre principles of quantum mechanics — like entanglement, in which two distant particles somehow affect each other — don't really change your daily life either. You can't see atoms and don't notice them doing this. But these principles are another basic truth that tells us something utterly unexpected about the fundamental nature of the universe.
Proving the holographic principle would be much the same. Living our normal lives, we probably won't think much about the peculiar, counterintuitive fact that we live in a hologram. But the discovery would serve as an important step toward fully understanding the laws of physics — which dictate every action you've ever taken.
Cance Loves Sweets
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a wide-ranging branch of computer science concerned with building smart machines capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence. AI is an interdisciplinary science with multiple approaches, but advancements in machine learning and deep learning are creating a paradigm shift in virtually every sector of the tech industry.
The limbic system, also known as the paleomammalian cortex, is a set of brain structures located on both sides of the thalamus, immediately beneath the medial temporal lobe of the cerebrum primarily in the forebrain. It supports a variety of functions including emotion, behavior, long-term memory, and olfaction.
Rodney Dangerfield And How He Pretty Much Invented Stand-Up Comedy As We Know It
People | May 16, 2021
Comedian and film star Rodney Dangerfield poses during a 1987 Beverly Hills, California, photo portrait session to promote his return to Las Vegas. (George Rose/Getty Images)
Rodney Dangerfield is known today as a revolutionary stand-up comedian, but that's not how he started out. His career began all the way back in the '30s, when vaudeville was the medium of choice for comics of all levels, but after vaudeville died out, he found himself washed up in only his twenties. Still, the stage called, so Dangerfield simply invented stand-up comedian.
Rodney Dangerfield: Vaudevillian
Rodney Dangerfield was born Jacob Cohen in 1921 to vaudeville performer Philip Cohen, who juggled and told jokes under the stage name Phil Roy, and his wife, Dorothy. Not long after little Jacob was born, Phil abandoned his family, but his son inherited the thirst for the stage, writing jokes for vaudeville comedians at only 15 years old. By 20, he was telling the jokes himself as Jack Roy. These early routines were a lot more dynamic than the Rodney Dangerfield performances we know and love, even including a high dive act.
Just as soon as Jacob Cohen got his first taste of success, however, audiences began shunning vaudeville in favor of movies and radio. To make ends meet, he worked as a singing waiter, but eventually, he gave up on the struggle and started selling aluminum siding full time. During his 15 years out of the spotlight, he married and started a family, but in his late thirties, he began performing again on the weekends at hotels and resorts in the Catskill Mountains, a popular destination for well-heeled Jewish families in the '50s. His act initially garnered tepid responses at best, so taking inspiration from popular television personality Jack Benny, Cohen created a down-on-his-luck everyman character who was often overlooked and dismissed.
Press photo of Rodney Dangerfield on stage performing in 1972. (Unknown author/Wikimedia Commons)
A Self-Deprecating Pioneer
By the early '60s, stand-up comedy wasn't exactly a novelty, but most popular performers were more social satirists than comedians. Rodney Dangerfield, as he had become known, wasn't interested in that. Instead, he stuck to the traditional vaudeville method of joke telling, but most importantly, he directed his jokes at himself rather than society. His famous catchphrase, "I get no respect," effectively summarized his onstage persona, and audiences loved it. Rodney Dangerfield was not just funny—he was relatable.
Dangerfield's popularity as a stand-up comedian grew throughout the '60s, resulting in an invitation to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967. To say the least, he killed it, and more invitations followed, from The Dean Martin Show to The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. For the next decade, Dangerfield was regularly broadcast right into America's living rooms. In 1969, at the height of his popularity, he opened a comedy club in New York City.
Rodney Dangerfield's tombstone at Pierce Brothers Westwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. (Alan Light/Wikimedia Commons)
Radical Republicans: The Anti-Slavery Group Who Pressured Lincoln Into Abolishing It
1800s | May 4, 2021
Political cartoon by Thomas Nast (1840-1902) depicting the Republican vote, represented by Uncle Sam riding an elephant, walking over the Democratic (Tammany) Tiger, 1876. (Kean Collection/Getty Images)
In the mid 1850s, an unofficial coalition within the Republican Party began to form as some of the more radical Republicans grew tired of the moderate approach the party took toward abolishing slavery across the United States. While many Republicans of the time spoke out against slavery, it seemed that not all were willing to do what it took to put an end to the terrible institution.
The Moderation Of Lincoln
In fact, although he is seen as the "Great Emancipator" today, Abraham Lincoln was a moderate Republican who believed that, while slavery was morally evil, a gradual approach to abolition was more effective and compromise was necessary. Before his election, Lincoln believed it was the job of the Republican Party to woo Americans, as "our government rests on public opinion [and] whoever can change public opinion can change the government."
Likewise, most Republicans of the Antebellum era were more concerned with stopping the spread of slavery into the Western states than the immediate emancipation of those enslaved in the South. They believed black Americans should have fundamental human rights, but not all believed those should include political rights like voting, and almost none believed they should have equal social standing (especially when it came to taboos like interracial marriage). Even during the Civil War, Lincoln was much more passionate about reuniting the nation than abolishing slavery. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it," he famously wrote to New York Post editor Horace Greenley. "And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."
The Radical Republicans, therefore, were some of Lincoln's greatest critics. They demanded not only a swift and total end to slavery without compromise but also fully equal rights for black Americans, which rubbed many moderates the wrong way.
Radical Republicans: The Anti-Slavery Group Who Pressured Lincoln Into Abolishing It
1800s | May 4, 2021
Political cartoon by Thomas Nast (1840-1902) depicting the Republican vote, represented by Uncle Sam riding an elephant, walking over the Democratic (Tammany) Tiger, 1876. (Kean Collection/Getty Images)
In the mid 1850s, an unofficial coalition within the Republican Party began to form as some of the more radical Republicans grew tired of the moderate approach the party took toward abolishing slavery across the United States. While many Republicans of the time spoke out against slavery, it seemed that not all were willing to do what it took to put an end to the terrible institution.
The Moderation Of Lincoln
In fact, although he is seen as the "Great Emancipator" today, Abraham Lincoln was a moderate Republican who believed that, while slavery was morally evil, a gradual approach to abolition was more effective and compromise was necessary. Before his election, Lincoln believed it was the job of the Republican Party to woo Americans, as "our government rests on public opinion [and] whoever can change public opinion can change the government."
Likewise, most Republicans of the Antebellum era were more concerned with stopping the spread of slavery into the Western states than the immediate emancipation of those enslaved in the South. They believed black Americans should have fundamental human rights, but not all believed those should include political rights like voting, and almost none believed they should have equal social standing (especially when it came to taboos like interracial marriage). Even during the Civil War, Lincoln was much more passionate about reuniting the nation than abolishing slavery. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it," he famously wrote to New York Post editor Horace Greenley. "And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."
The Radical Republicans, therefore, were some of Lincoln's greatest critics. They demanded not only a swift and total end to slavery without compromise but also fully equal rights for black Americans, which rubbed many moderates the wrong way.
An 1867 drawing depicting African-Americans casting ballots. (Alfred Waud/Wikimedia Commons)
Radical Republicans: The Anti-Slavery Group Who Pressured Lincoln Into Abolishing It
1800s | May 4, 2021
Political cartoon by Thomas Nast (1840-1902) depicting the Republican vote, represented by Uncle Sam riding an elephant, walking over the Democratic (Tammany) Tiger, 1876. (Kean Collection/Getty Images)
In the mid 1850s, an unofficial coalition within the Republican Party began to form as some of the more radical Republicans grew tired of the moderate approach the party took toward abolishing slavery across the United States. While many Republicans of the time spoke out against slavery, it seemed that not all were willing to do what it took to put an end to the terrible institution.
The Moderation Of Lincoln
In fact, although he is seen as the "Great Emancipator" today, Abraham Lincoln was a moderate Republican who believed that, while slavery was morally evil, a gradual approach to abolition was more effective and compromise was necessary. Before his election, Lincoln believed it was the job of the Republican Party to woo Americans, as "our government rests on public opinion [and] whoever can change public opinion can change the government."
Likewise, most Republicans of the Antebellum era were more concerned with stopping the spread of slavery into the Western states than the immediate emancipation of those enslaved in the South. They believed black Americans should have fundamental human rights, but not all believed those should include political rights like voting, and almost none believed they should have equal social standing (especially when it came to taboos like interracial marriage). Even during the Civil War, Lincoln was much more passionate about reuniting the nation than abolishing slavery. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it," he famously wrote to New York Post editor Horace Greenley. "And if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."
The Radical Republicans, therefore, were some of Lincoln's greatest critics. They demanded not only a swift and total end to slavery without compromise but also fully equal rights for black Americans, which rubbed many moderates the wrong way.
Mixed Results
Unhappy with Andrew Johnson, the Radicals supported none other than famed General Ulysses S. Grant for president in the election of 1868 and worked closely with him during the Reconstruction era to draft and push the even more progressive 15th Amendment, which promised that the "vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." After the war, black Americans voted in droves, and many of them held office (including former slaves like South Carolina Congressman Robert Smalls). In 1827, an impressive 320 seats on the federal and state level were held by black legislators as many Southern districts flipped Republican.
It wasn't exactly happily ever after: The era of Jim Crow and the rise of voter intimidation and barriers like literacy tests once again curtailed the black vote until the 1960s. Radical Republicans, black and white alike, were subjected to terror and violence by white supremacy groups like the Ku Klux Klan, who assassinated Radical Republican and Arkansas Congressman James Hinds for daring to offer equal educational opportunities. Reconstruction died completely under the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes, and unfortunately, much of the political and civil rights work of Grant and the Radical Republicans was nullified for the next half century.
Josephine Myrtle Corbin was an American sideshow performer born a dipygus. Which means, her body axis split while it was developing and as a result, she grew two separate pelvises, positioned side by side. She also had four legs, each outer leg was paired with a smaller inner leg. While she was able to move her inner legs, they were too weak for walking. She entered the sideshow circuit when she was 13-years old with the moniker "Four-Legged Girl from Texas".
She quit the biz and got married at 19, to James Clinton Bicknell, and she would go on to give birth to four daughters and a son. It was after she became pregnant for the first time and was thoroughly examined by her doctor, that they realized both sides of her external and internal genital organs mirrored each other. It was her left uterus that was pregnant at the time.
For almost a thousand years the little girls of China would have their feet tightly wrapped in bandages in hopes of stopping the foot’s growth. This caused their toes to curl and the feet to shrivel in on themselves and creating the illusion of petite feet when they were actually just deforming and crippling themselves and their children.
Feet measuring no longer than three inches and crescent in shape were the most desired. In addition to being a symbol of beauty, smaller feet reflected a higher social status and wealth. After all, women who didn’t need their feet to work must have wealthy families. Foot binding was banned from China in the 20th century but there are still elderly women alive today, suffering from disabilities because of this painful, old custom.
Check out this audacious aquatic creature! He’s really going for it! He’s just suctioning himself along, hunting humans to bring back as offerings to Cthulhu. Can you imagine being that diver? Feeling those thick tentacles wrap around your ankles? How much do you want to bet every Science Fiction Horror movie he’s ever seen in his entire life, was flashing before his eyes at this exact moment? (Photo is actually of a artistic display on a restaurant in Oregon that depicts everyone's worst nightmare, but is not real. Would be alot cooler if it was)
Look at these little goblins! Forget the Avengers costumes, this vintage photo captures a time when kids really knew how to dress up and scare the hell out of you on Halloween. These kids definitely had the right idea! Samhain is supposed to be the one time when all the dead can return to earth and walk amongst the living. They’d stir up mischief, damage crops, and possibly drag innocents back to the underworld with them before morning light. So people would don masks and cloaks and strange hats to make themselves look like ghosts, ghouls, and witches in efforts to blend in with the things that go bump in the night.
What fresh hell is this you ask? Why it’s a suit of Siberian bear-hunting armor from back in the 1800’s…. When people apparently took bears down with ‘bear hugs’. A commenter on the Foundation of the American Institute for Conservation message boards put it best with this assessment: “I suspect it is more likely to be for bear bating than hunting since I can't imagine anyone could run around the woods in it. It consists of leather pants and jacket (and an iron helmet) studded all over with 1-inch iron nails about 3/4 in. apart. The nails are held in place by the second layer of leather lining the whole thing and quilted into place between the nails.”
Check out this massive waterspout swirling towards Tampa, Florida back in 2013! While it may look kind of cool, waterspouts are basically water-tornados, and while they are often weaker than land-based tornados, they are still terrifying. Thankfully, the spouts don't usually last too long (five or ten minutes) but they can still do some serious damage in just a short time. Floridian Joey Mole captured this incredible photo. There’s video to go along with this photo, it features quite a bit of cursing and is currently circulating across the Internet if you care to take a look.
Greetings!
Amazon.com Inc on Tuesday announced a canine-like robot called Astro, striving to make its voice-controlled tech a bigger part of consumers' lives. This report was produced by Chris Dignam. Amazon.com Inc on Tuesday announced a canine-like robot called Astro, striving to make its voice-controlled tech a…
© iStock Stock image featuring illustrations of SARS-CoV-2 particles.
The Mu COVID-19 variant has been garnering increased attention over the past few weeks and was recently designated as a "variant of interest" by the World Health Organization…
