The Holographic Universe Explained

We live in a universe with 3 dimensions of space and one of time. Up, down, left, right, forward, back, past, future. 3+1 dimensions. Or so our primitive Pleistocene-evolved brains find it useful to believe. And we cling to this intuition, even as physics shows us that this view of reality may be only a very narrow perception. One of the most startling possibilities is that our 3+1 dimensional universe may better described as resulting from a spacetime one dimension lower – like a hologram projected from a surface infinitely far away.

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Need a Refresher to Fully Understand the Holographic Principle?

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Hosted by Matt O’Dowd
Written by Matt O’Dowd
Graphics by Aaron Halevy
Directing by Andrew Kornhaber

The holographic principle emerged from many subtle clues – clues discovered over decades of theoretical exploration of the universe. Over the past several months on Space Time, we’ve seen those close clues, and we’ve built a the foundations needed to glimpse the true meaning of the holographic principle. We’ve moved from quantum field theory to black hole thermodynamics to string theory. We’ve made a background playlist if you want to start from scratch, and I especially recommend catching last week’s episode. But this is tough material, so let’s do a review.

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Matthew O’Connor

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