The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry » Topic: The universe is a hologram!

The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry » Topic: The universe is a hologram! http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram Just another bbPress community en-US Mon, 20 May 2013 08:30:19 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.2 <![CDATA[Search]]> q http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/search.php Maxx England on "The universe is a hologram!" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram#post-123783 Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:27:57 +0000 Maxx England 123783@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I just like the explanation for why so much of life is like a bizarre cartoon. Q: iF we are 2 dimensional, what does that make any of our pictorial representations? Answers on a cube to the usual address. Anonymous on "The universe is a hologram!" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram#post-123399 Sun, 29 Mar 2009 23:55:50 +0000 Anonymous 123399@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ My brain just melted Awesome! Wish I had something intelligent to add but the only thing that keeps popping into my head is... cool! Nitro on "The universe is a hologram!" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram#post-115771 Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:37:11 +0000 Nitro 115771@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ I've heard that, when it comes to the general field of physics, you need a really, really young brain to start with. IOW, if you haven't become an expert in your field by your late 20's you're considered a goner ( so to speak ) career-wise and better like teaching. . Sort of like sports. To get to the top of your game, you're going to peak around the age of 25 and begin 'declining' rapidly ( compartively speaking ) by 28 and if you want to stay in sports, will probably move to coaching if you've not gone pro or got the gold medal. . I'm not saying what I've heard is hard and fast but it sort of makes sense because you have to be able to master the highest levels of mathematics to do any of the work, and also think highly abstractly and by 30 most of us have so much general info sloshing around in our heads there's not many more 'open spaces' ( lol poor metaphor, and not true either, but the best I can come up with on the fly ) . That's not to say if you're in your 30's and want to begin a career as an astro-physicist that you shouldn't, only that you'll likely be in an extreme minority X-D Thankfully, the really Big Brains can break everything they've learned and understand down into comprehensible terms for the rest of us. It's all awe-inspiring when there's a good translator around <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_biggrin.gif" title=":D" class="bb_smilies" /> Benjamin on "The universe is a hologram!" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram#post-115717 Thu, 05 Mar 2009 15:44:12 +0000 Benjamin 115717@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ Sounds like it's part of the superstring theories(?).</blockquote> It's borne of the same school of thought, I think (namely the 'propellerheads'' <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_wink.gif" title=";-)" class="bb_smilies" /> ). Superstring theory does cross over in that the 'strings' it talks about are also ten to the power of minus thirty-two metres (this size is known as the <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/planck-length">Planck Length</a> [Note the linkage].) However, it sort of - as far as I can gather - works in the opposite direction; this hologram theory is pretty much what it says on the tin (3D projections of 2D information) whereas various string theories not only account for, but actually require, ten dimensions. Trust me, I'm far from an ultimate egghead when it comes to this sort of thing - I start to burn out at this level and need to go and read the very hungry caterpillar for a bit. It's something I find very interesting, but it takes me ages to get my head around eve the simplest application of abstract physics at this level. Still, woo! >>>EDIT: Ah. As it turns out, the Planck length is actually ten to the power of minus thirty-five metres. I've been lying to the kids <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_sad.gif" title=":(" class="bb_smilies" /> <<< Nitro on "The universe is a hologram!" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram#post-115511 Thu, 05 Mar 2009 04:46:07 +0000 Nitro 115511@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ ''...the universe is a giant hologram...". Cool. Sounds like it's part of the superstring theories(?). It's all amazing, even the thought of it and I wish theoretical physics were a bigger part of my own brains database. I do like listening to the real 'propellor heads' talk about what they know and think especially when they can explain it in 'bonk-bonk' terms for someone like me <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_biggrin.gif" title=":-D" class="bb_smilies" /> Benjamin on "The universe is a hologram!" http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/topic/the-universe-is-a-hologram#post-115245 Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:24:18 +0000 Benjamin 115245@http://www.stephenfry.com/forum/ DISCLAIMER: HEAVY SCIENCE ALERT <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_eek.gif" title="8-O" class="bb_smilies" /> This is a story I read in the New Scientist a few weeks ago, and as Arthur C. Clark alludes most theories tend to last 'until next Wednesday', but I got the urge to share some quite mind-shagging abstract physics with all you lovely people. <a href="http://mensa-barbie.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-scientist-explores-hologram-world.html">CLICKINTON</a> and <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true">CLICKTITUDE</a> I'll summarize it as simply as I can: the idea is that, at the edge of the universe, space/time dissolves into 'grains' (not dissimilar to the dots one sees when looking closely at a magic picture or newspaper photograph). This conjecture seems to stem from a black hole's presence contradicting established physical laws. For a black hole ... one cannot define a surface gravity as the acceleration experienced by a test body at the object's surface. This is because the acceleration ... at the event horizon of a black hole [is] infinite in relativity</blockquote> ... i.e. a gravitational pull strong enough to drag light in is effectively infinite. However, this leads to a few fun paradoxes. The electrons of a black hole are so densely compacted that it doesn't actually exist according to established physical laws.</blockquote> <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_eek.gif" title="8-O" class="bb_smilies" /> #2 Hawking showed that black holes are in fact not entirely "black" but instead slowly emit radiation, which causes them to evaporate and eventually disappear. This poses a puzzle, because Hawking radiation does not convey any information about the interior of a black hole. When the black hole has gone, all the information about the star that collapsed to form the black hole has vanished, which contradicts the widely affirmed principle that information cannot be destroyed.</blockquote> Information, in this sense, referring to matter and energy - which, if you believe Star Trek, are interchangeable; and if you believe physics, cannot be created or destroyed - only changed to another form. Time for a couple of quick definitions: event horizon noun ASTRON. the spherical boundary surrounding a black hole, within which there is such strong gravity that nothing, not even light, can escape</blockquote> en·tropy (en′trə pē) noun 1. a thermodynamic measure of the amount of energy unavailable for useful work in a system undergoing change 2. a measure of the degree of disorder in a substance or a system: entropy always increases and available energy diminishes in a closed system, as the universe 3. in information theory, a measure of the information content of a message evaluated as to its uncertainty 4. a process of degeneration marked variously by increasing degrees of uncertainty, disorder, fragmentation, chaos, etc.; specif., such a process regarded as the inevitable, terminal stage in the life of a social system or structure</blockquote> What has been dubbed the 'Black Hole Information Paradox' has since been accounted for by theorists, who have said that a black hole's entropy is proportional to the surface area of its event horizon. In other words, the event horizon shrinks as the black hole does, which sounds about right. However, they have also discovered that 'quantum ripples' on the event horizon can encode the information within on a miniscule, two-dimensional spectrum, thus accounting for the matter and energy we had previously assumed lost when it was turned into a tasty entree for a super-dense dead star, making a black hole something akin to a cosmic filing-clerk. This is the really weird bit, however - this idea of 3D information (of a star) being able to be coded as 2D (on the horizon of the black hole it becomes) has been theoretically applied to the universe as a whole. This theory purports that the universe is surrounded by a two-dimensional spherical field comprising tessellating squares of encoded information - a hundred billion billion times smaller than a proton, or ten to the power of minus thirty-five metres ( <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_eek.gif" title="8-O" class="bb_smilies" /> #3). In response to the truth that the universe is far more voluminous than its outer surface area, it has been proposed that it's constituent three-dimensional information is a blurred projection of the two-dimensional units of information which surround it, each one far larger - approximately ten to the power of minus sixteen metres (a size we can deal with far more comfortably.) In other words, the universe is a giant hologram. Woohoo! Mindfuck! <img src="http://www.stephenfry.com/bb-content/plugins//bb-smilies/default/icon_biggrin.gif" title=":-D" class="bb_smilies" /> Any thoughts?