Although our universe seems 3-D, quantum physics suggests that we could actually be living in a 2-D world. A new experiment by the U.S. Department of Energy is seeking to prove that, as well as make new discoveries about the Universe as a whole.
The concept is relatively straightforward. Physicists suggest that we might be like characters on a television show, thinking the world around us is 3-D, but actually living in a 2-D environment. Each character on the screen is actually a series of pixels, minuscule points of data that create a complete image.
Scientists think that the Universe stores information in the same way, although a pixel of space is a lot smaller than on a TV screen: about 10 trillion trillion times the size of an atom. And although we can't see these specific pixels, everything in the Universe might actually be a series of these that exist in just two dimensions.
If this is true, then space becomes much more uncertain. Scientists believe that this "digitized space" has vibrations similar to quantum waves in matter, and that the vibrations happen even in a state of low energy.
The experiment, done at the Fermilab, will seek out these vibrations, searching for them with something called a Holometer, which is sensitive enough to measure these quantum vibrations of space. Evidence of this holographic "noise" might serve as proof that we are actually living in a 2-D world.
"We want to find out whether space-time is a quantum system just like matter is," says Craig Hogan, Fermilab's director for Particle Astrophysics. "If we see something, it will completely change ideas about space we've used for thousands of years."
The first challenge in searching for this holographic noise is that scientists expect it to happen at all frequencies, and things like radio waves from electronic devices can affect readings. To combat that, the Holometer only tests at one of the highest frequencies possible to weed out this background noise.
"If we find a noise we can't get rid of, we might be detecting something fundamental about nature - a noise that is intrinsic to space-time," says Fermilab physicist Aaron Chou. "It's an exciting moment for physics. A positive result will open a whole new avenue of questioning about how space works."
The Holometer experiment will collect data for about a year before scientists release their findings to the public.
