Holographic Universe

[Norad-II]

---

Has this been linked before? Anyway, this is absolutely mind-blowing. I can't even begin to fathom how the universe could be a 2D projection.

How a Holographic Universe Emerged From Fight With Stephen Hawking | Wired Science | Wired.com

"The work sprung out of a long argument with Stephen Hawking about the nature of black holes, which was eventually solved by the realization that the event horizon could act as a hologram, preserving information about the material that’s gotten sucked inside. The same sort of math, it turns out, can actually describe any point in the Universe, meaning that the entire content Universe can be viewed as a giant hologram, one that resides on the surface of whatever two-dimensional shape will enclose it."

[observer]

The reference to 2-D is actually about how information is preserved on the Event Horizon (the edge of the black hole), which is theoretically a two-dimensional surface. As with a hologram, 3-D images can be stored as 2-D data. This was the inspired move by Leonard Susskind to "solve" (or rather refute) Hawking's Information Paradox, a paradox which suggested the scientific "heresy" that information could be lost when a black hole disappears.

In effect, from what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the Event Horizon serves as the storage device for the black hole. And when a black hole evaporates through the Hawking radiation, the information is carried along and gets spitted out from that Hawking radiation. So, no information gets lost as the the black hole disappears. Anyway, I know I probably am not getting the story right...would be glad to be enlightened.

When it comes to bizarre things about the universe though, I think the Event Horizon certainly ranks up there with Quantum Mechanics. Think about it. The theory suggests that, if you watched (from a distance) someone falling in towards the Event Horizon, you would see that person completely disintegrate due to extreme temperatures inside the black hole. But the very same theory also says that, from the perspective of somebody falling into the blackhole, he would see nothing special about the horizon. He would just freely fall through it: no hot temperatures, no destructive influences. He would cleanly pass through the horizon with absolutely nothing interesting happening.

And listen to what Susskind says about this:

While it seems extremely weird that both of these stories could be true, as far as we can tell now, both stories are true.

If that doesn't blow your mind...

[rodsky]

...if you watched (from a distance) someone falling in towards the Event Horizon, you would see that person completely disintegrate due to extreme temperatures inside the black hole.

From what I remember, this process, often described as "spaghettification" (Spaghettification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), is brought about not by high temperatures, but by the extreme tidal/gravitational forces going on as one approaches the event horizon.

-RODION

[observer]

rodsky, yes you're right...which got me thinking as to whether or not there are extreme temperatures inside the black hole.

Extreme tidal forces would chop up a person falling into the black hole into tiny little pieces. However, the disintegration, I would think, would still be helped along by the incredibly hot temperatures just outside the black hole (I'll tell you later where I got my "falling into the black hole" description from). I made a mistake in saying the person would "disintegrate due to extreme temperatures inside the black hole". I was thinking classically about the extreme density inside black holes, which is: MORE DENSE=MORE HEAT. I was dead wrong about this.

So I had to ask "Are black holes hot or cold?" and found my answer here:

Are black holes hot or cold? (from sciencefocus.com)

Black holes are freezing cold on the inside, but incredibly hot just outside. The internal temperature of a black hole with the mass of our Sun is around one-millionth of a degree above absolute zero. Just outside the hole, however, the material being pulled into the hole's gravity well is accelerated to near the speed of light. The molecules of the material collide with such vigour that it is heated up to a temperature of hundreds of millions of degrees. When astronomers study black holes, this is the material that they see. The radiation from the material masks the tiny amount of radiation escaping from the hole itself, and so what the astronomers observe is the very hot outside environment, rather than the freezing cold environment inside.

*freezing cold inside, extremely hot outside...something new I've learned about black holes today...hehe

Hundreds of millions of degrees just outside the blackhole, I should say, is a big factor in the disintegration process. Actually, my flawed description of "falling into the blackhole" was a poor attempt to paraphrase Susskind's description of the same thought experiment in a documentary entitled the Hawking Paradox. My bad (sorry). In it, here's what he says (I've transcribed exactly what he said in that video):

As that person gets closer and closer to the black hole, he will be evaporated, ionized...all the terrible things that would happen from extremely high temperatures would happen to him...and eventually would just be converted to electrons, protons, neutrons...just completely destroyed.

[tylerdurden]

this has been disproved, i think (link)

or "they" upped the rez.