Democritus and the title of Thomas Friedman's bestseller might have gotten it right after all. But it's the universe, not the Earth, that might be flat – a 2-dimensional hologram, according to an international team of researchers.

Holograms might be most familiar as the colorful 3-D images used as security measures on some credit cards and currencies. But of course, they're not really 3-dimensional, are they? They contain all the information necessary for our eyes to perceive them that way, but the pictures are actually printed on a 2-D surface. A new calculation, published last Monday in Physical Review Letters, says that models describing our early universe similarly have now been shown to agree with recent observations just as well as standard 3-D models do.

The sticking point is gravity. Ever since Einstein's General Theory of Relativity described the force that keeps our feet on the ground as a consequence of the shape of space, it's been giving physicists headaches.


Other forces, including electromagnetism, can be explained in terms of particles. Magnets may seem to be magically tugging on each other from a distance, but at some level they're swapping photons. Gravity has vigorously resisted this kind of particle-level description, giving rise to exotic theories of quantum gravity such as string theory.

One proposed bridge between these odd theories of gravity and more established quantum theories of particles accomplishes "lots of wonderful things," writes particle physicist Raphael Bousso of the University of California at Berkeley in an email to The Christian Science Monitor.

This baffling concept of being able to capture all the information of a 3-D volume with only its flat surface lies at the heart of the holographic principle, and its ability to sidestep sticky issues like what exactly is inside the box makes it a valuable tool for physicists trying to probe inaccessible areas of the universe.

In the case of the early universe, both our theories of gravity and quantum particles run into problems, but as Dr. Afshordi puts it, the "holographic principle really gives us a way to get around that, even if you have no idea what the theory of quantum gravity is."

He takes a humble, philosophical view of his team's efforts to apply the mathematics of holography to the unknowable early moments of the cosmos.

https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2017/0204/Could-the-universe-actually-be-a-flat-hologram

Mark McCandlish says information has been shared with him about an Alien Reproduction Vehicle built by the military using technology that has been back engineered from alien technology.
McCandlish says that in 1988 he and a friend were planning on attending an air show at Norton Air Force Base. McCandlish ended up having to cancel due to a last minute illustration needed by Popular Mechanics. However, his friend went and through a well connected acquaintance, was able to gain entrance to a secured area of the base with a special display for politicians and military personnel with high level security clearances.
The craft were referred to as Alien Reproduction Vehicles (ARVs), and also had the nickname, the “Flux Liner.” McCandlish says he believes these are part of a secret program that has been around for decades.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QNvZN7X7v8
Published on May 2, 2016