Our universe is one massive HOLOGRAM and our entire existence is an ILLUSION, scientists claim
Experts make the depressing claim that life is little more than a fantasy
THE universe is one "vast and complex hologram" and our three-dimensional world may be an illusion, scientists have claimed.
British, Canadian and Italian scientists have found what they claim is the first evidence that our world is not what we thought it was.
The astrophysicists studied the "afterglow" left over from the Big Bang, or the cosmic microwave background and found substantial evidence that the universe is holographic.
Bizarre as it may seem, there is currently the same amount of evidence for a holographic world as there is for the traditional structure of the universe, the scientists at University of Southampton claimed.
The concept of a holographic universe was first suggested in the 1990s but it's not until now that telescope data has been able to back it up.
The concept is similar to watching a 3D film in a cinema.
Viewers see the pictures as having height, width and, crucially, depth when in fact it all originates from a flat 2D screen.
The difference, in our 3D universe, is that we can touch objects and the "projection" is "real" from our perspective.
Similarly, we perceive everything around us to be 3D when they are actually flat, the theory suggests.
It's a mind-blowing theory, considering the prevalence of holograms in our day-today world (including Japan's new brand of hologram wives).
Professor Kostas Skenderis, of mathematical sciences at the University of Southampton, said: "Imagine that everything you see, feel and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field.
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"The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card. However, this time, the entire universe is encoded."
Prof Skenderis added: "Holography is a huge leap forward in the way we think about the structure and creation of the universe.
"Einstein's theory of general relativity explains almost everything large scale in the universe very well, but starts to unravel when examining its origins and mechanisms at quantum level.
"Scientists have been working for decades to combine Einstein's theory of gravity and quantum theory.
"Some believe the concept of a holographic universe has the potential to reconcile the two. I hope our research takes us another step towards this."
The researchers, from the University of Southampton (UK), University of Waterloo (Canada), Perimeter Institute (Canada), INFN, Lecce (Italy) and the University of Salento (Italy), have published their findings in the journal Physical Review Letters.
It follows the chilling study that revealed the Universe is heading for a "cold, dark, apocalypse" a lot sooner than we thought.
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