* Astronomy

Members Login

Post Info

TOPIC: Holographic Principle

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Feb 4 12:15 2009

Holographic Universe	Permalink

Cardiff University researchers, who are part of a British-German team searching the depths of space to study gravitational waves, may have stumbled on one of the most important discoveries in physics, according to an American physicist. Craig Hogan, a physicist at Fermilab Centre for Particle Astrophysics in Illinois is convinced that he has found proof in the data of the gravitational wave detector GEO600 of a holographic Universe - and that his ideas could explain mysterious noise in the detector data that has not been explained so far. The British-German team behind the GEO600, which includes scientists from the School of Physics and Astronomy's Gravitational Physics Group, will now carry out new experiments in the coming months to yield more evidence about Craig Hogan's assumptions. If proved correct, it could help in the quest to bring together quantum mechanics and Einstein's theory of gravity. Read more The GEO600 project aims at the direct detection of gravitational waves by means of a laser interferometer of 600 m armlength. Gravitational waves are extremely small ripples in the structure of spacetime caused by astrophysical events like supernovae or coalescing massive binaries (neutron stars, black holes). They have been predicted by Albert Einstein in 1916, but not yet directly observed. Read more __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Jan 30 14:29 2008

Holographic Principle	Permalink

Dr Brian Cox on the Holographic principle Click to Play \| View Details __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Feb 13 15:11 2007

Dimensions	Permalink

"General relativity in five dimensions gave theoreticians five additional quantities to manipulate beyond the 10 needed to adequately define the gravitational field. Kaluza and Klein noticed that four of the five extra quantities could be identified with the four components needed to define the electromagnetic field. In fact, to the delight of Kaluza and Klein, these four quantities obeyed the same types of equations as those derived by Maxwell in the late 1800s for electromagnetic radiationl Although this was a promising start, the approach never really caught on and was soon buried by the onrush of theoretical work on the quantum theory of electromagnetic force." Read more "In 1919, Polish mathematician Theodor Kaluza proposed that the existence of a fourth spatial dimension might allow the linking of general relativity and electromagnetic theory." Read more "Lisa Randall, one of the world's most influential physicists, explains why we need more than three dimensions to understand the cosmos" Read more (39kb, PDF) __________________

Blobrana

L

Posts: 131433

Date: Nov 13 23:09 2005

Holographic Principle	Permalink

Like a Hologram, the Universe Merely Appears to Have Three Spatial Dimensions. In quantum physics, nothing is as it seems. As physicists continue to study the universe they continually run into new questions that shake how humans understand the universe's intricate mechanics. UC Berkeley physics professor, Raphael Bousso, is trying to break down the mysteries of the universe with a concept called the holographic principle. Physicists stumbled on the idea while studying black holes. It is a concept, which ultimately questions whether the third dimension exists. "There's a real conflict between the way that we're thinking about the world right now, which is a very local way where everything happens independently in different regions of space and the way that we're going to have to think about it" - Raphael Bousso. Bousso presented the ideas at a seminar last weekend called "Latest Theories about the Universe and Its Governing Laws: Theoretical Physics Made Easy for the Public" at the Lawrence Hall of Science to an audience of about 100. The holographic principle uses the optical concept of holograms to try to visually explain the complex idea. Holograms are most often used on credit cards and are images that look three dimensional, but they exist on a two dimensional surface. "You have to keep in mind that we're just using that name as a sort of metaphor for something that we're specifying quite precisely when we're talking about how much information there is relative to certain areas" - Raphael Bousso. A computer chip is a good way to visualize the principle. The chip has information stored on it in the form of data, but this isn't the information Bousso is talking about. Information in the holographic principle means the entire collection of matter the chip is made of. "One way of quantifying the complexity of matter is to ask how many different states can it be in? How many things can you wiggle in? How many different ways?" - Raphael Bousso. It would seem logical that if you doubled the size of the chip, then you could store twice as much information on the chip. "What we've found is that it appears that gravity conspires against that when you really try to store a lot of information in a special region, then once you double that region you can't store twice as much anymore" - Raphael Bousso. In other words, if you have a bunch of grapes in the fridge and have all the information including water content, temperature and anything else, you should be able to create an exact replica of the grapes. Physicists have found the information content doesn't hinge on volume, but rather on surface area. An information increase can only happen on a two-dimensional surface and information density cannot increase by volume, a three-dimensional measurement. "The total amount of information that you can store in the world grows only like the surface area of the region that you're considering" -Raphael Bousso. The discovery ultimately says the concept shows the third dimension could be an illusion because complex calculations can't prove it exists. The recognition is a step of progress, but Bousso doesn't know where it will ultimately lead. "It may be a major step, it may just be one piece in a very big puzzle, but I think it's definitely progress towards that goal" - Raphael Bousso. Although there is practical way to use these principles right now, Bousso said he and fellow physicists are driven to understand nature at the most fundamental level. Albert Einstein didn't have any practical applications for his theory of relativity when he first discovered it, but now the concept is woven into today's technology with things like global positioning systems, he said. "It happens to be true that sooner or later these types of progress have not just had practical applications, but they really underlie almost everything that we can do technologically today" - Raphael Bousso. Ultimately, the physicist wants to find the origins and the implications of the holographic principle. He said the principle has given insight into physics concepts that scientists have understood for years. "It gives us a preview of some of the unifications and the explanatory power that the quantum gravity we're seeking is going to have" - Raphael Bousso. Source __________________

Page 1 of 1 sorted by

Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse