Are We All Holograms? Life in a 2-D Universe

What if tomorrow somebody tells you that the universe as we knew it was just an illusion and is actually a hologram? Get ready for it: this might not be sci-fi. We could all be in 2D, after all! Weird, isn’ it?

An ongoing experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory – the so-called Holometer – has now begun collecting data that will answer questions about the very fabric of the universe, including whether or not we live in a 2-D reality – that is, a hologram.  More precisely, if space-time itself is a quantum system – exactly just like matter – then it can be analysed down to its smallest units. As a result, its 2D “pixels” of information could demonstrate the same uncertainty of matter’s quantum building blocks, which, according to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, can’t be measured for their exact location and speed at the same time.

Maybe this is less unbelievable than it sounds. The idea itself of a reality manufactured by our brain is an ancient one, already present in Tibetan Buddhism.  Since the 20th century, quantum physics has started providing a scientific foundation and a few books have been written on the concept of a Holographic Universe. But now scientists are trying to prove it at an experimental level.