Not to worry you, but you might be a hologram. Me too, along with with everyone you've ever met and will meet, your home, your neighbourhood, your city, and in fact everything in the entire Universe. 

That's the conclusion of an international team of physicists who've just released new results showing that their holographic theory fits observations of the early universe just as well as the Big Bang theory does.

“Imagine that everything you see, feel and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field,” Kostas Skenderis from the University of Southampton. 


Starting to Unravel

New have, over the past few decades, given physicists much more information about the early universe. That has given theorists an opportunity to put their ideas to the test – to see how well they match up with reality.

A holographic universe is just one of those ideas, and it passed this test, but the traditional Big Bang theory is well-established and has a lot of evidence for it that wasn't tested here. Time will tell if the holographic theory can pass further tests.

“Holography is a huge leap forward in the way we think about the structure and creation of the universe,” said Skenderis. “Einstein's theory of general relativity explains almost everything large scale in the universe very well, but starts to unravel when examining its origins and mechanisms at quantum level.” 


So, in summary then, it's too early to say for sure if you're a hologram. But you might be.

The full details of the research were in the journal Physics Review Letters.

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