(April 27, 2015) Describing
the universe requires fewer dimensions than we might think. New calculations
show that this may not just be a mathematical trick, but a fundamental feature
of space itself.
At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us,
the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of
theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging this assumption. The
"holographic principle” asserts that a mathematical description of the
universe actually requires one fewer dimension than it seems. What we perceive as
three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge
cosmic horizon.