HARROW: It sounds like something drunk physicists might consider after a long night at the university pub: What if the universe was nothing more than a hologram? But, interestingly enough, this idea is a serious one that scientists have had a difficult time ruling out. At least, until now.
A team of researchers at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, have performed an experiment that they say rules out the hologram theory once and for all, reports Science.
The so-called “holographic principle,” if true, would mean that the universe actually exists in only two dimensions, and that the third dimension is an illusion in the same way that holograms present the false impression of a third dimension. The theory has some proponents among string theorists, because the holographic principle would also imply that the total amount of information in the known universe is finite. It would assist string theorists in formulating their grand “theory of everything” that melds the theories of gravity and quantum mechanics.
