Moonliner
01-15-2009, 11:58 AM
Ok, try and wrap your head around this one....
An experiment to detect gravity waves have been unable to do so because they keep picking up a noise they can't get rid of.
It turns out the problem might be that they have exceeded the resolution of the universe. Rather like zooming in too close to a photograph.
Wait you say, how can "The Universe" have a maximum resolution? It's not like it's an image right? Well it might just be one. A holographic image (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true)to be exact.
For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.
An experiment to detect gravity waves have been unable to do so because they keep picking up a noise they can't get rid of.
It turns out the problem might be that they have exceeded the resolution of the universe. Rather like zooming in too close to a photograph.
Wait you say, how can "The Universe" have a maximum resolution? It's not like it's an image right? Well it might just be one. A holographic image (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true)to be exact.
For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into "grains", just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. "It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time," says Hogan.