Posted on 12/13/2013 1:24:43 PM PST by BenLurkin
Theres a web post from the Nature website going around entitled Simulations back up theory that Universe is a hologram. Its an interesting concept, but suffice it to say, the universe is not a hologram, certainly not in the way people think of holograms. So what is this holographic universe thing?
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From this you get a headline implying that we live in a hologram. On twitter, Ethan Siegel proposed a more sensible headline: Important idea of string theory shown not to be mathematically inconsistent in one particular way.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
“Universe is a hologram”
Somewhere a hindu or Buddhist is nodding in agreement.
“All is illusion”
Heh heh...my answer to all that is that the “self” part of me can’t negate the fact that there is a “self” part of me that doubts... even if “self” can doubt what the senses convey to the “self” part of me!
And some day Moriarty will return and box Picard about the ears.
“It’s all a simulation and you sent me into a Klingon Civil war?”
Actually, continous monitoring of speed vs. measuring time from start to finish are NOT equivalent. Example: I race my car at 1000mph (speeding), but then stop and rest for 5 hours just shy of the finish line, the measure total time from start to finish would not catch my episode of exceeding the speed limit.
don’t make the mistake of thinking that all scientists are atheists.
There are many God fearing scientists who simply wish to understand how God did it.
I didn’t mean all of them. I just find it odd that a lot of those who do not believe in God can say the universe was fabricated, or is a hologram or Earth was seeded by aliens or constructed for mice (wait, that was a movie)...
all of those things would seem to take more faith than believing in God.
It will match the hologram of their brain...
99.99999999% of an atom is empty space therefore matter is 99.99999999% empty space so matter is not really as it appears and feels to our senses. The idea of using the word hologram to visualize this is a good one. It is theorized that even the particles within an atom themselves are not solid matter.
The data from the WMAP satellite that mapped the cosmic microwave background radiation seems to prove that the universe is infinite and constantly expanding. It is flat, Euclidean space where parallel lines will never meet and triangles have angles that sum to 180 degrees. Of course, I'm sure some brain somewhere will find a new interpretation of the data.
BUT, not all particles are bound by this principle. I forget which particles are free to stack up on one another in the same spot - neutrinos maybe?
I'm a bit fond of teaching my kids that the closer scientists look at matter, the more it disappears.
The mechanical range of scale of at least intellectual inquiry is mind boggling, from the Planck length (which I think is on the order of a trillionth of the "width" of a proton or something like that) to billions of light years - and as you point out, nearly all of the volume of the universe, even the so-called "solid" stuff, is empty.
When we touch matter we are not actually touching matter but feel force fields that make it seem to us we are touching solid matter. To visualize how this is possible take 2 magnets and try to touch the nort poles together and you will feel resistance before they actually touch.
What if he goes 120 mph for 1/2 of it and 30 mph for the second half?
Not to disagree, or even to try to expound a sense of what the universe "is," the word "infinite" can be applied to mass as well as to length/distance. I don't think a measurement of the background microwave radiation allows one to conclude the mass of the universe is infinite.
A Capella Science - Bohemian Gravity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc
Thanks for the pointer. Really enjoyed that.
“I forget which particles are free to stack up on one another in the same spot - neutrinos maybe?”
Any boson particle, so photons, bosons, gluons, etc. Fermions, like electrons, quarks, and neutrinos cannot share states.
Good article. The media is hyping this for their own selfish reasons. Gamma ray observations have all but ruled out a holographic universe.
Just because the boundaries are beyond our ability to perceive doesn't make them infinite.
Speaking of perception, our perception of time is RULED like an iron fist by merely the earth's shadow. That is our ruler. A shadow.
Forget Big Bang-’Rainbow Gravity’ theory-universe has NO beginning & stretches out infinitely
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