That means that every single bit of information that we see in three dimensions is encoded somewhere on the “surface” of the universe in only two dimensions.Īnd if that’s true, it means that equations governing things like quantum gravity and string theory become a bit easier to solve as we instead reduce the problem from three dimensions to two dimensions. If this is true, it’s also possible that, like black holes, our entire universe could also be like a hologram. The Entire Universe as a Two Dimensional Object This may mean that what we think as three-dimensional black holes may be an illusion - and they may actually be just two dimensions - just like a hologram. In addition, the entropy of a black hole is proportional to its surface area, which again is consistent with a two-dimensional black hole. As material falls into a black hole, its surface area grows in proportion to the material falling into it, not the volume, as we would expect from a classical object. This sounds strange, but there is some evidence it may be true. Instead, it is preserved in the surface area (or the event horizon) of the black hole itself. GettyĪs material falls into the black hole, information would not be lost. Unlike a flat picture, if you turn a hologram, you can see information from all three dimensions of the object.īlack holes may be two-dimensional, but contain information about three dimensions, just like a. Rather, two-dimensional here is like a hologram, with information of three dimensions saved on a two-dimensional surface. When we say two-dimensional, they are not like our television screens. One of the strange possible solutions to this paradox is that black holes are actually two-dimensional entities. There are many potential solutions to this paradox, from changing how we think about time to modifying our ideas of gravity to forming alternate baby universes. It may reveal some very interesting truths about the universe.
Right now, the black hole paradox remains unsolved. Once the black hole evaporates, this leaves us to question - where has all that information gone? Black Holes as Two-Dimensional Creatures This means that they are not taking any information from the black hole with them, and contain no information about the original material that fell in the black hole. These particles that form near a black hole have a featureless thermal spectrum.
In theory, if you had all of this information, you could remake that book in exactly the same form. Every particle within that book - and all of their quantum states - has information associated with it - mass, spin, velocity, and so on. We can think of this as the information contained within the words, but really, it means the quantum information.
That information contained within those sonnets and plays must go somewhere. It has to go somewhere.īut what happens when you throw information into a black hole? Let’s say you throw the entire works of Shakespeare into a black hole. Like many quantities, the net information contained in the universe must be conserved. In this case, a strange paradox centering on black holes shows that there is a gap in our understanding of relativity and quantum mechanics - and this gap could mean that we indeed live in a two-dimensional universe. Could the universe we see around us actually be two-dimensional? The idea may seem ludicrous, but the universe has shown before it is a very weird place.