According to astrophysicists at the University of Southampton, and scientists from Canada and Italy, studying the cosmic microwave background, or the afterglow from the big Bang, the universe may just be “a vast and complex hologram”, an illusion, like a 3D image.

The researchers argue that evidence for this exists, no less than in relation to traditional ideas about the structure of the Universe. A “picture” of the Universe, observed by us, quite comparable to what we see during a session in the 3D cinema, although there is no hologram. We know that the three-dimensional image is formed on a flat screen.

Just at the level of the Universe it looks more convincing to the extent that we can touch the objects and they will look and behave like in reality.

“Holographic” theory of the Universe first saw the light in the 90-ies of the last century.

“Just imagine — offers Professor of mathematics, University of Southampton, Costas Skenderis, what you all perceived visual and auditory information in three dimensions (including time), actually comes from a flat two-dimensional field. The idea is similar to ordinary protective hologram, where a three-dimensional image is displayed using a two-dimensional surface.”

These studies will help to combine two major approaches to the understanding of physics – the General theory of relativity, explaining everything on a large scale, and quantum theory, dealing with the microcosm.