Information in the Holographic Universe Theoretical results about black holes suggest that the universe could be like a gigantic hologram By Jacob D. Bekenstein Ask anybody what the physical world is made of, and you are likely to be told "matter and energy." Yet if we have learned anything from engineering, biology and physics, information is just as crucial an ingredient. The robot at the automobile factory is supplied with metal and plastic but can make nothing useful without copious instructions telling it which part to weld to what and so on. A ribosome in a cell in your body is supplied with amino acid building blocks and is powered by energy released by the conversion of ATP to ADP, but it can synthesize no proteins without the information brought to it from the DNA in the cell's nucleus. Likewise, a century of developments in physics has taught us that information is a crucial player in physical systems and processes. Indeed, a current trend, initiated by John A. Wheeler of Princeton University, is to regard the physical world as made of information, with energy and matter as incidentals. This viewpoint invites a new look at venerable questions. The information storage capacity of devices such as hard disk drives has been increasing by leaps and bounds. When will such progress halt? What is the ultimate information capacity of a device that weighs, say, less than a gram and can fit inside a cubic centimeter (roughly the size of a computer chip)? How much information does it take to describe a whole universe? Could that description fit in a computer's memory? Could we, as William Blake memorably penned, "see the world in a grain of sand," or is that idea no more than poetic license? Remarkably, recent developments in theoretical physics answer some of these questions, and the answers might be important clues to the ultimate theory of reality. By studying the mysterious properties of black holes, physicists have deduced absolute limits on how much information a region of space or a quantity of matter and energy can hold. Related results suggest that our universe, which we perceive to have three spatial dimensions, might instead be "written" on a two-dimensional surface, like a hologram. Our everyday perceptions of the world as three-dimensional would then be either a profound illusion or merely one of two alternative ways of viewing reality. A grain of sand may not encompass our world, but a flat screen might. A Tale of Two Entropies Formal information theory originated in seminal 1948 papers by American applied mathematician Claude E. Shannon, who introduced today's most widely used measure of information content: entropy. Entropy had long been a central concept of thermodynamics, the branch of physics dealing with heat. Thermodynamic entropy is popularly described as the disorder in a physical system. In 1877 Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann characterized it more precisely in terms of the number of distinct microscopic states that the particles composing a chunk of matter could be in while still looking like the same macroscopic chunk of matter. For example, for the air in the room around you, one would count all the ways that the individual gas molecules could be distributed in the room and all the ways they could be moving. When Shannon cast about for a way to quantify the information contained in, say, a message, he was led by logic to a formula with the same form as Boltzmann's. The Shannon entropy of a message is the number of binary digits, or bits, needed to encode it. Shannon's entropy does not enlighten us about the value of information, which is highly dependent on context. Yet as an objective measure of quantity of information, it has been enormously useful in science and technology. For instance, the design of every modern communications device--from cellular phones to modems to compact-disc players--relies on Shannon entropy. Thermodynamic entropy and Shannon entropy are conceptually equivalent: the number of arrangements that are counted by Boltzmann entropy reflects the amount of Shannon information one would need to implement any particular arrangement. The two entropies have two salient differences, though. First, the thermodynamic entropy used by a chemist or a refrigeration engineer is expressed in units of energy divided by temperature, whereas the Shannon entropy used by a communications engineer is in bits, essentially dimensionless. That difference is merely a matter of convention. Continued here...
When I read something like this, I always think, "I thought science was supposed to advance humanity in some way. What the hell has this got to do with anything? Who cares?"
next thing they say is Yao is an alien who is left on the earth to take over one day, his parents found him in the street and adopt him, yea, I am bored. by the way, steve francis is the choosen one to stop yao's spread by not passing him the ball, and mobely is his side kick. Rudy T's destiny is to controll Yao, but he already failed, instead, JVG, the other alien is replaced to monitor Francis and mobely! wtf I am talking about.............
I see you are taking your signature to heart. New theories and different perspectives are the breeding ground of scientific advancement and achievement. One day, a scientist said "For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction." This sounds like the BS many students write in term papers, so someone may have asked him for an example. Well, a common example in many textbooks is that if I push on a wall, it pushes back at me with the same force. Sounds nonsensical, right? Of course, this principle is utilized by almost all modern engines that run our world. New insights such as this, if correct, are invaluable. I find them fascinating personally, but then again, I had a pretty decent rating on the geek test, too.
This kind of science is extremely important, and fascinating. There should be no higher goal than understanding the true nature of reality.
So basically, this theory is taking away the "depth" dimension right? Most of the stuff I have read always claims "time" as the fourth dimension. Is that taken away too? And what the heck is the other way to view to reality?
Depends... are you talking spatial dimensions? Through Rockets-colored glasses because no matter how bad they suck, you still love 'em!
How does this affect those theories on hyperspace and all that? Because time, the alleged 4th dimension, is manipulated in that, as well as the other 3 dimensions, right? But if the universe is only 2d, with a 3d projection...
Well the dimensions are either spatial or time related. Seems like this theory is taking away a dimension from each field. And they want to base this theory on some "alternate" way to view reality? Seems like bs to me.
A 3d image can be projected in 2d, but I've never heard of it the other way around. Of course I'm not saying its impossible, but it makes you think. I'm with you on the hyperspace thing though. I dont know how wormholes and such could exist in a world without time and depth. By the way, aren't there suppose to be really 10 dimensions? I have this awesome book on Black holes and wormholes that has some interesting theories on such matter. I'll try to find it and post some stuff.
If you buy into tring theory, the universe is the result of the colision of two "branes" (aka membranes) this brane world exists in 10 dimesnions, most of which have folded up upon themselves, and are therefore mostly irreleveant. This, of course, is only theory. 100 years ago the smartest man in the world was contemplating the concept of a steady state universe, something which today is laughable.
