Do we live in a hologram? Why physics is still mesmerised by this idea

IN NOVEMBER 1997, a young physicist named Juan Maldacena proposed an almost ludicrously bold idea: that space-time, the fabric of the universe and apparently the backdrop against which reality plays out, is a hologram.

For many working in the fields of particle physics and gravity at the time, Maldacena’s proposal was as surprising as it was ingenious. Before it was published, the notion of a holographic universe was “way out there”, says Ed Witten, a mathematical physicist at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton (IAS), New Jersey. “I would have described it as wild speculation.”

And yet today, just over 25 years on, the holographic universe is widely revered as one of the most important breakthroughs of the past few decades. The reason is that it strikes at the mystery of quantum gravity – the long-sought unification of quantum physics, which governs particles and their interactions, and general relativity, which casts gravity as the product of warped space-time.

Then again, you might wonder why the idea is held in such high regard given that it remains a mathematical conjecture, which means it is unproven, and that the model universe it applies to has a bizarre geometry that doesn’t resemble our universe.

The answer, it turns out, is twofold. First, the holographic conjecture has helped to make sense of otherwise intractable problems in particle physics and black holes. Second, and more intriguing perhaps, physicists have finally begun to make headway in their attempts to demonstrate that the holographic principle applies to the cosmos we actually reside in.

Maldacena, now also at the IAS, was originally inspired by two separate branches of …