An experiment looked at whether or not we are living inside of a hologram.
The phenomenon would be similar to characters on a TV show who think they are living in a 3-D world but are really behind a 2-D screen, Fermilab reported. The unique experiment is being conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory using what is called the Holometer.
The researchers believe the universe may be composed of "pixels" similar to a TV screen, which up close is made up of colorful dots but appears to be a seamless picture at a further distance. In this theory the "pixel size" of space is about 10 trillion times smaller than an atom, a distance referred to as the "Planck scale."
"We want to find out whether space-time is a quantum system just like matter is," said Craig Hogan, director of Fermilab's Center for Particle Astrophysics and the developer of the holographic noise theory. "If we see something, it will completely change ideas about space we've used for thousands of years."
Quantum theory suggests one cannot determine the exact location and speed of subatomic particles; if space comes in 2-D bits with little information of objects then space itself would be uncertain. Matter jiggles in quantum waves even when cooled to absolute zero, and this "digitized" space would also have inherent vibrations.
The recent experiment looks at the universe's ability to store information using Fermilab's Holometer, or holographic interferometer, to measure the quantum jitter of space. The device uses a pair of interferometers to send a one-kilowatt laser beam at a beam splitter and down two perpendicular 40-meter arms. When the light is reflected back to the beam splitter the beams recombine, resulting in fluctuations of brightness if motion is detected.
"Holographic noise" is expected to be present in all frequencies, but the Holometer is testing a frequency so high that normal motions are not expected to interfere; the device is designed to identify and eliminate noise from conventional sources such as radio waves from electronics.
"If we find a noise we can't get rid of, we might be detecting something fundamental about nature - a noise that is intrinsic to space-time," said Fermilab physicist Aaron Chou, lead scientist and project manager for the Holometer. "It's an exciting moment for physics. A positive result will open a whole new avenue of questioning about how space works."
