Is our universe merely a hologram?

Fascinating reading here;

www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2010/1...olographic-universe/

That would certainly explain a few things!

what we perceive as a third dimension would actually be a projection of time intertwined with depth

now there is one idea worth sitting back in the couch contemplating about for the rest of the night, truely mindbending :ohmy:

Well we can wait a year or longer to find out, some interesting theory there, it really makes you think is this a possibility???

Keith..

Dave_Lillis wrote:

what we perceive as a third dimension would actually be a projection of time intertwined with depth

now there is one idea worth sitting back in the couch contemplating about for the rest of the night, truely mindbending :ohmy:

Could that be taken as a form of time travel? I haven't read the article but from the comment quoted here it makes it seem that the 3rd dimension is relative in space and time to each person's view individually, thereby making it a form of time travel. No?



Seanie.

I have a conflict in my mind.

The article refers to pixelation of spacetime - ie there's an assumption of quantization. In other words there exists a scale beneath which distance cannot be be broken into smaller parts.

Take a chessboard and consider each square to be unit size (of length one).

Take the diagonal of one of the squares - it's going to be of length square root of two (sqrt( 1^2 + 1^2)). Now square root of two is an irrational number. That means one can't find integer values for p and q such that square root of two is equal to p/q. This means there is no integer size for which the diagonal is a multiple of it. That is, two dimensional euclidean space forbids quantization (and as three dimensional space comprises two orthogonal two-dimensional planes it is precluded in 3D space also).

For history of discovery and links to some proofs of irrationality see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_number

But these are very bright minds and I can't help feeling uncomfortable contradicting them in any shape or form - but the pixelization of spacetime is an equally uncomfortable thought.

Just my sqrt(2) cents...

Mark C.

Mrk,

I can't disagree with your mathematical logic. It appears sound to me. One thought is that I think the word pixelation confuses the issue to a degree. Unlike a chess board this 'pixelation' could be an any geometric shape. Here's how I imagine what they are suggesting and in fact it ties in with something I have considered for some time.

Imagine when you take a photo, you put a representation of a 3d world onto a 2d surface. I imagine every direction we look as a 2d plane, A 'slice of universe' if you will. Now if you change your POV you are looking at another (slightly different) slice of universe. Now imagine that you keep repeating the experiment but each successive time you reduce the amount you change your POV by. I think the suggestion is that there is a finite lower limit that you can change your POV by and still see a different slice of universe. i.e there is a finite number of these slices.

Like you, I assume they have considered irrationality but if you don't question these things nothing new comes of it.

Interesting thoughts Mark.....

Dave.