If anything can illustrate how little we know about the universe are black holes . We can not see them because not even light can escape their gravitational pull; We do not know what they were and did not know what happens when a black hole dies, writes Science Alert .
Scientists even disagree whether black holes are massive three-dimensional monsters or simply two-dimensional surfaces designed in three dimensions, just like holograms.
Ambitious study published recently, supports the second hypothesis. Scientists have made a new calculation of entropy of black holes, which supports the possibility that these gigantic mysteries of the universe are merely an optical illusion.
The hypothesis of the holographic universe
First proposed in 90s of 20th century physicist Leonard Susskind, this hypothesis argues that mathematical point of view the universe needs only two dimensions, so that gravity and the laws of physics to work.
For us, everything looks like a three-dimensional image of two-dimensional process, projected on a huge cosmic horizon.
This may sound crazy, but allowed considerable controversy between Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics. For example, the paradox of information - "nothing can escape from a black hole, but the matter can never be completely destroyed."
Scientists have had great success in combining the results of gravitational phenomena behavior of quantum particles using only two spatial dimensions.
Since 1997. They have published more than 10,000 scientific studies to support this idea.
Leaving aside for a moment the whole universe, let's apply this thinking to black holes. Physicists suggest that we can not understand what happens when something enters into the black hole - beyond the edge known as the " event horizon " - because there is no "inside". Everything that goes beyond the edge gets caught in the gravitational surface modifications.
A team of scientists led by physicist Daniel Prantseti from the Max Planck Institute for Theoretical Physics in Germany now published a new calculation of the amount of entropy in the black hole. The calculations support the above scenario.
Scientists have focused on entropy - or the degree of disorder - in a thing. In the past, Stephen Hawking says that the entropy of a black hole should be proportional to its size, not its volume - and this idea gave birth to the first hypothesis that black holes may have holograms.
"Although the scientific community has a consensus that black holes must have entropy or their existence would violate the second law of thermodynamics, there is no agreement on the origin of this entropy, or how to calculate its value" - explains Science Explorer .
Prantseti and his colleagues used a theoretical approach known as " loop quantum gravity " (Loop Quantum Gravity).
Quantum gravity describes the force of gravity in accordance with the principles of quantum mechanics. According to her, the fabric of space-time consists of small elements known as quanta - we can imagine them as "atoms" of space-time. Collections of these quanta are called condensates. They found that just as a glass of water with the atoms that make up water molecules and a black hole full of condensates will have the same properties. Their behavior can be determined by examining the properties of only one of them.
This means that we can not see or measure what's beyond the event horizon of a black hole - and therefore its entropy - but no matter, because the collective properties of its "atoms" can be measured as described above.
"As the fluids in our scales appear continuous, although consist of a huge number of atoms in a similar way in quantum gravity the building space" atoms "forming a kind of" liquid "- continuous space-time." - writes Prantseti in a statement. "The continuous and homogeneous geometry (like that of a spherically symmetric black hole) can be described as a condensate."
What does all this mean for our holographic hypothesis? Imagine a black hole as a three-dimensional basketball - the ring is the event horizon, and the network is the hole in which all matter falls and disappears. Lift up the network ring to make it flat, two-dimensional circle, then imagine that all this - and metal threads - is made of water. So whatever measure ring can be applied to the entire network.
With this in mind, Prantseti and his team have done a model that shows that the three-dimensional nature of black holes may be just an illusion - all the information in a black hole could theoretically be accommodated in a two-dimensional surface without the need for actual " hole "or interior. This can explain why entropy is more related to the surface area, not volume.
The model is described in Physical Review Letters and although it is almost impossible to prove with certainty that black holes are two-dimensional, theoretical physics definitely has undertaken to do so. The new study is a major step forward and one day will look great in textbooks
Source: Bright Side