Is Our Entire World an Illusion? New Experiment Tests Nature of the Universe

Could our entire world be an illusion? That's the question that scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are asking. They've started collecting data with a unique experiment called the Holometer that will answer some questions about our universe, including whether or not we live in a hologram.

Much like characters on a television show wouldn't know that their seemingly 3D world exists only on a 2D screen, we could be unaware that our 3D space is just an illusion. In fact, the information about everything in our universe could actually be encoded in tiny packets in two dimensions. Just like pixels on a television screen, it's possible that the universe's information could be contained in natural "pixel sized" space, which would be roughly 10 trillion times smaller than an atom, a distance that physicists refer to as the Planck scale.

"We want to find out whether space-time is a quantum system just like matter is," said Craig Hogan, one of the researchers, in a news release. "If we see something, it will completely change ideas about space we've used for thousands of years."

The experiment itself essentially probes the limits of the universe's ability to store information. If there is a set number of "bits" that can tell you where something is, it eventually becomes impossible to find more specific information about the location. The Fermilab's Holometer will essentially measure the quantum jitter of space itself.

The scientists plan to measure the "holographic noise," which is expected to be present at all frequencies. The real challenge will be not to be fooled by other sources of vibrations. Because the Holometer is testing a frequency that's so high, it's possible that there will be dominant background noise from radio waves emitted by nearby electronics. The Holometer is designed to identify and eliminate noise from these sources.

"If we find a noise we can't get rid of, we may be detecting something fundamental about nature-a noise that is intrinsic to space-time," said Aaron Chou, lead scientist and project manager for the Holometer, in a news release. "It's an exciting moment for physics. A positive result will open a whole new avenue of questioning about how space works."