Boffins attempt to prove the universe is just a hologram How can we tell from the inside of our Universe if it’s actually real or just a hologram? Boffins at Fermilab have set out to answer this thorny question with a new experiment in the National Accelerator Lab called the Holometer. A Fermilab scientist works on the laser beams at the heart of the Holometer experiment Lasers …
"I try to imagine its "look and feel" while riding on a photon ! :-)"
Sorry to upset you but it'd be beyond a blur as a photon transits instantaneously over any distance from its perspective. It's travelling at light speed so doesn't experience time at all AFAIK.
(Of course hitching a ride on a photon will slow it down unless you too are massless so this isn't anything more than a thought experiment unless you've seriously been dieting )
@Chemist
"... so this isn't anything more than a thought experiment unless you've seriously been dieting"
I suspect people cut down on thought experiment production by thinking less. I've tried everything, South Beach (thinking like a Blonde), Low Carbohydrate (thinking like a rock) ... if this diet works it will life-changing for millions.
A photon doesn't have a perspective, but I digress.
The whole idea of time either going slower or faster is from the observer's point of view, for whoever is inside the "event" where this timeshift happens it appears as if nothing has happened, for them. Except if they were able to observe the observers they would find their time is either moving slower or faster.
Going from that I would think that if you were to travel on a photon and if said photon would travel instantaneously it would still appear from your point of view as if time would behave normally.
I like theoretical physics, you can make up all kind of (bogus) thought experiements without the burden of proof. ;-)
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"as if time would behave normally."
Indeed, but normal for a photon - photons don't experience time. You would still arrive at your destination instantly - your watch would not have ticked - that's normal for a photon. But, but you still can only do any of this if your rest mass is 0.
Sounds weird I know but that's the universe for you. As an object approaches c its 'clock' runs slower and slower - at c it stops. This photon if it was sentient would experience its entire trip from emission to absorption as a single composite image
YOU ARE!! I had to say that. That was my first contribution to the theory at about 9 years old, and there are about an infinite number of arguments against it--and it was even covered prior to that (sometime in the 1940s I believe but don't ask me who)--but the thought still intrigues me.
"In science, you can't prove a theory to be true. You can only prove it false.
But you also can't prove a negative, so where does that leave us?"
Same place science has always been: Building on the work of previous researchers, trying to build a platform high enough to glimpse the far-off ocean of Truth.
"Building on the work of previous researchers, trying to build a platform high enough to glimpse the far-off ocean of Truth."
Which is essentially a fancy way of saying that science is never right, only slightly less wrong than it was before. Explanations are not the same as truths.
From a logical point of view you CAN prove the negative of a general statement. It is enough to observe ONE instance that contradicts the general statement. On the contrary, in order to prove a general statement true, you should observe all possible instances of that statement (in natural science all occurrences of a phenomenon): in principle infinitely many.
In natural science this is relevant given the additional assumption that we can, in principle, make the measurement error, on an specific quantity, as small as we like.
>>You can prove a theory to be true by showing that it being false would lead to a contradiction.
Technically true (called either of the following ex adverso, reductio ad absurdum, by contradiction), however, might be quite problematic to build a whole theory with this method. It is certainly easier to prove a single theorem (statement) out of many the given theory consists of. In proving every theorem you of course can try arguing one at a time by contradiction. It concerns Physics, Math and other sciences.
It usually works best/easiest when alternatives to a statement are few (like finite/infinite, unique/non-unique, rational/irrational). Say, the proof of the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic stating that prime numbers are infinitely many, a well-known proof, ascribed to Euclid comes to mind as one beautiful example. Or in proving that sqrt(2), sqrt(n) are irrational, with n being a not perfect square integer. Similarly many existence and uniqueness theorems are proven by contradiction for uniqueness, but not existence.
Seems to be plenty of similar experiments like this either to detect the ether, gravitational waves etc and they all suffere from the fact the Earth is a bloody noisy place with vibrations coming from so many sources.
this is an experiment that if proved true, does not actually help us with anything!
This was discussed in the August issue of Scientific American. I have a niggling feeling that in a universe with 4 extended spatial dimensions, attractive forces exerted by a "point" like object would fall off in accordance with an inverse cube law rather than the inverse square law in our universe. This would mean that bound structures such as electrons orbiting atomic nuclei and planets orbiting stars are not possible. Not sure about atomic nuclei and the strong and weak forces though.
Unfortunately at this time in the morning my maths isn't up to exploring this further.
Well a dutch scientist already made the the math to explain gravity just as a side effect of what you describe. On the other side it might be possible that true empty space has a different nature (it cann't be made due to quantum fluctuations). Dough i wonder if QM is just realy the end of measuring and certainty. I rather hope for a a nice mix perhaps something with fractals endless infinite patterns and strings / membranes. As to me inflation just doesnt sound right.
I am going to go out on a limb here and use these forums to say that Bohemian Rhapsody is the most over-rated, pretentious piece of drivel ever to reach the charts.
But then I am also appalled that the non-riff from "Whole Lotta Love" should even be in contention for a "best in history" nod.
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I first heard about this about 2 years ago on a Horizon program entitled "What is reality?". As the first poster indicates, the idea is that "reality" exists only on the surface/edge of the universe, and everything inside it is just a projection of that surface.
If something as bonkers as this is proven true then (a) it would be very exciting and (b) it might explain other strange phenomena like odd socks being eaten by the washing machine.
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