Theoretical physics: The origins of space and time

Nature ^ | 8/28/13 | Zeeya Merali

[LibWhacker]

Many researchers believe that physics will not be complete until it can explain not just the behaviour of space and time, but where these entities come from.

“Imagine waking up one day and realizing that you actually live inside a computer game,” says Mark Van Raamsdonk, describing what sounds like a pitch for a science-fiction film. But for Van Raamsdonk, a physicist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, this scenario is a way to think about reality. If it is true, he says, “everything around us — the whole three-dimensional physical world — is an illusion born from information encoded elsewhere, on a two-dimensional chip”. That would make our Universe, with its three spatial dimensions, a kind of hologram, projected from a substrate that exists only in lower dimensions.

This 'holographic principle' is strange even by the usual standards of theoretical physics. But Van Raamsdonk is one of a small band of researchers who think that the usual ideas are not yet strange enough. If nothing else, they say, neither of the two great pillars of modern physics — general relativity, which describes gravity as a curvature of space and time, and quantum mechanics, which governs the atomic realm — gives any account for the existence of space and time. Neither does string theory, which describes elementary threads of energy.

Van Raamsdonk and his colleagues are convinced that physics will not be complete until it can explain how space and time emerge from something more fundamental — a project that will require concepts at least as audacious as holography. They argue that such a radical reconceptualization of reality is the only way to explain what happens when the infinitely dense 'singularity' at the core of a black hole distorts the fabric of space-time beyond all recognition, ...

[Condor51]

“Imagine waking up one day and realizing that you actually live inside a computer game,” says Mark Van Raamsdonk

SIMCITY^TM, the final version.

[Skooz]

bfl

[21stCenturion]

...

[InterceptPoint]

I have a way of explaining inflation without breaking the speed limit. I’d like to fly it by someone skilled in the art in private so I don’t embarrass my self in public with an obvious mistake...

Trust me. If you are able to offer up any sort of explanation for faster than light expansion of the universe then you qualify for immunity from embarrassment. Why don't you post a short sketch of your idea?

(And no, I'm not a Freeper Cosmologist. Sorry about that.)

[Hot Tabasco]

They argue that such a radical reconceptualization of reality is the only way to explain what happens when the infinitely dense 'singularity' at the core of a black hole distorts the fabric of space-time beyond all recognition, ...

After playing softball yesterday morning, me and my fellow seniors were sitting at the picnic table, eating chips and drinking beer when that very subject came up........what a coincidence.

[InterceptPoint]

One of the fundamental problems with modern physics IMO is that they are chasing down the 'string theory' rabbit hole. String theory isn't even wrong, and pretty much can't really be tested.

Pretty much my take on String Theory as well. I keep hoping that there will be a breakthrough one way or the other. Some smart guy/gal needs to find experimental confirmation that String Theory is the right track or, in some way, prove it isn't.

[no-to-illegals]

LOL - Living on Love.

[Dead Corpse]

It's all in your head...

[martin_fierro]

"Van Raamsdonk."

"pfffffft ... Donk"

HAHAHAHHAA

[Fightin Whitey]

Well I think its high time my user hooks me up.

Judging by the photo I'd settle for your hooker using me up!

[null and void]

I will, but first I want to know if it is plausible to someone skilled in the art, if it isn’t I want to include why in my post, lest an error grow legs of it own and escape...