Reality has always been a paradox of sorts: the world we observe around us appears to be governed by a very clear set of principles whether we’re discussing grains of sand or the red supergiant Betelgeuse. Once we go to the sub atomic scale however, everything we thought we know goes straight out the window.
The fundamental particles of matter and energy adhere to a very different set of rules that by their very nature appear incredibly random and change rapidly. From a sub-atomic perspective, the universe is based not on solid information, rather, it is based on probability. For instance, in the quantum world, an electron does not have a fixed location. It may be either at location A, location B or possibly, BOTH locations at the same time. The very universe itself may need someone or something to observe it in order to collapse into existence. Think it sounds ridiculous? Consider this, then: the very act of observation can cause significant changes to the way an electron behaves in an environment where all other factors remain unchanged. This observation was made in historic double slit experiment (explained in the below video)
As demonstrated in the video, the nature of the smallest particles in the universe is not set in stone, but rather fluctuates between many possible states. What’s astounding is that it appears matters is able to respond to the act of observation. In other words, it is able to respond to external stimulus (this raises questions about the nature of conciseness, but that subject is beyond the scope of this article). What we can gleam from this is that an unobserved universe may be entirely different form the one we see and know, and more significantly, an unobserved universe may not exist at all because observation may be a necessity for existence. With the same line of thought, what exactly created the first particles? Are we real in the way we think we are? Or are we truly some sort of simulation?
Several theories have been in existence which point to the whole universe being a projection of two dimensional information in a virtual plane. These theories are slowly gaining more and more traction with physicists. At this point, there’s no concrete evidence that any of these theory are real. However, several indications do exist that it is a very real possibility.
Let’s have a look at the indicators for one theory in particular: a theory that states that the entire universe exists within a black hole. Black holes are the one realm of the universe that don’t fit into conventional Newtonian physics or quantum physics. Only theoretical evidence exists to back this theory: to understand it, we must first understand how a black hole grows. The first thing to understand is that adding more mass to a black hole, makes it less dense. Typically, when a spherical object doubles its mass without causing change to its density, the increase in the radius is not double, it is the cube root of two times the radius. This is because volume is determined by the cube of the radius and not the radius itself.
In a black hole however, the growth is very different. The mass of the black hole, if doubled, results in a doubling of the radius as well. In fact, the core of the black hole doesn’t actually get much larger because black holes are essentially points, they are infinitely dense and the mass is all concentrated to a single point (primarily because there’s no empty space between particles as there is typically in regular matter.) Instead, what expands is the Event Horizon in other words, if you take the black hole as a whole, doubling the mass of the black hole will increase its volume by 8 times. 2x the mass and 8x the volume means density is quartered (density = mass/volume).
It has been hypothesized that any- and every-thing that goes into a black hole is preserve in the form of information on the surface of the black hole itself. To look at it another way, it is possible to use the information on the surface of a black hole to create the entirety of every atom swallowed by the black hole. In theory, a black hole with the same mass as the universe would also have the same density as the universe we exist in. Strange coincidence isn’t it? What if we are in fact data from the event horizon of a black hole projected onto another plane?
A philosophy also exists stating that our universe is the product of an extremely advanced simulation by a far superior intelligence, similar to what we saw on the Matrix. Details of this hypothesis are detailed by Space.com. We have no decisive answers yet, but the prevalent theories of the time see to indicate that the universe may be a non-physical entity. Perhaps nihilists had it right all along. Now that’d be something wouldn’t it?
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