Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

sciencebulletin.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 197 posts

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#51

Post by blincoln »

Possibly dumb question, but I know my niece is going to ask me about this, and I'd like to be able to give her a solid response: does this mean that most distances within our universe are illusory? If not, why not?

To expand on that thought a little bit, with a hologram, the projected object is an illusion, and can be made to appear to move at arbitrary speed by e.g. rotating the projection apparatus. On a larger scale, it's possible to create the illusion of FTL movement by e.g. rapidly rotating a laser projector in space and then traveling a long distance from it, so that at a certain distance from the source, it appears that there is a projection from the source which is rotating faster than light.

If this theory models the universe as a 3D (or more) projection from a 2D surface, why is it not possible to cause objects within our perceived 3D+ universe to appear to move faster than light by causing some sort of change to the 2D surface itself? I assume there is a reason this is not possible within the bounds of this theory, but I have no idea what that reason might be.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#52

Post by Panoramix »

lngnmn wrote: post #50
Panoramix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did you get that this was a simulation? The were analyzing telescope data.

Analysis presupposes some model.

The entirety of physics is a bunch of models that match reality to various degrees, and which are able to predict things.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#53

Post by xyzzy4 »

ORioN63 wrote: post #47
xyzzy4 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it means the max amount of information in the observable universe is bounded by the amount of information that could fit on the 2D surface of a spherical event horizon of a black hole of the same size.

Is there a why? I got curious.

If you take all the mass and energy of the observable universe and throw it into a black hole, its event horizon would expand and encode all the information you put into it. Information can't be destroyed so that's why it is encoded in the event horizon. The diameter of the event horizon would also be much smaller than the diameter of the observable universe, because there's a lot of empty space in the universe, and we don't see everything collapsing inwards due to too much mass. So if you had an event horizon with the diameter of the observable universe, it would encode a lot more information than what's in our observable universe. Note I'm just a layman here and I could be interpreting it incorrectly.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#54

Post by marcosdumay »

PaulAJ wrote: post #29
neals wrote: post #18

I'm having some trouble understanding this sentence: " [...] our 3-D ‘reality’ (plus time) is contained in a 2-D surface on its boundaries." What, exactly, do they mean with 'on its boundries'?

I'm familiar with the idea of coordinate transforms and projections, so I get the idea that you could project our 3D universe onto a 2D surface, and I kind of see how a hologram encodes 3D information, but I don't see how that is a useful idea. Or are there only certain kinds of 4D information that can be encoded in the 2D surface, so our 4D model of space and time gets reduced to a theory of only 2 dimensions? Are t…

Laymen "easy" language makes everything harder to understand.

The holographic principle means that if you take a sphere somewhere, the amount of entropy you can push there grows with r^2, and not with r^3 like you'd expect.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#55

Post by billionsfan1 »

While not conclusive, does this not sound like support for what could be Intelligent Design - ID?

'Patterns imprinted in it carry information about the very early Universe and seed the development of structures of stars and galaxies in the late time Universe.' [From the Bulletin]

If the universe is encoded on a 2d surface and has been projected on 3d, doesn't that sound like some design/intentional purpose encoded on the 2d surface?

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#56

Post by z3t4 »

yaks_hairbrush wrote: post #12
Severian wrote: post #9

I wonder if this theory supports the idea that the universe inhabits a black hole, or at least the surface of one.

Actually, the big bang bears a pretty striking resemblance to a white hole. That's the time-reversed version of a black hole. Whereas with a black hole, all paths lead toward the singularity at its core, with a white hole, all paths lead away from the singularity.

if time actually runs backwards a lot of things would make sense

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#58

Post by Osmium »

Question, from someone who does not understand the Holographic universe idea:

If 'true', is the holographic universe 'merely' a mathematical tool that helps us solve problems, or is it a description of an objective reality, and the universe is 'really' a 2D surface, and our 3D perception is somehow illusory?

I understand this is partly a philosophy of science question, but would be interested to hear an expert opinion ...

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#59

Post by dragonwriter »

Osmium wrote: post #58

Question, from someone who does not understand the Holographic universe idea: If 'true', is the holographic universe 'merely' a mathematical tool that helps us solve problems, or is it a description of an objective reality, and the universe is 'really' a 2D surface, and our 3D perception is somehow illusory? I understand this is partly a philosophy of science question, but would be interested to hear an expert opinio…

Until and unleas.a theory is falsified and revealed to be an incomplete model, there is no way to differentiate the "mathematical tool" from the "underlying reality" case, since any theory that works without qualification is, by definition, a model which is not detectably distinguishable from being the underlying reality.

Re: Study reveals substantial evidence of holographic universe

#60

Post by lngnmn »

Panoramix wrote: post #52
lngnmn wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Analysis presupposes some model.

The entirety of physics is a bunch of models that match reality to various degrees, and which are able to predict things.

That does not mean that unproved (non-existent) factors should be added to a model or that any inferences could be made from a simulated model.

Experiment, not a simulation is the criterion of validity in the scientific method. Simulation is not a valid experiment.

Hypotheses and predictions are guesses, not facts and cannot be substituted for facts or logical premises.

Post reply on HN